Envious 28
by Mackiecam
Summary: Mary Lou, Stephanie's long-time friend, has decided that being a bounty hunter is more fun that being a stay-at-home mother with four kids. As she moves into Steph's apartment and her life, Kanye, local pimp, decides that Steph will make an excellent 'ho. This follows Sneaky 27, and is a Babe story.
1. Chapter 1

**Envious Twenty-Eight**

_Envious 28 is an original work using characters developed in Janet Evanovich's books and is the latest in the series that I have created out of JE's characters. My series takes place after JE's 21__st__ book, and should be read in the following order:_

_22 Caliber_

_Trigger Happy 23_

_Morelli's Argument 23.5_

_Ranger23.75_

_Threatening 24_

_Fixation 25_

_Security 26_

_Sneaky 27_

_Date Night at the Movies 27.1_

_Meeting Maria 27.2_

_The Intervention 27.3_

_All my books are posted on this site._

_Any similarity to real events or real people is entirely coincidental. I hope to post chapters every Monday and Friday, depending upon whether life gets in the way. I hope you enjoy the story as much as I liked writing it. As always, reviews are greatly appreciated._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One**

I'm Stephanie Plum, a sassy, hard-working, periodically lucky woman who is thirty-something years old – old enough to not want to admit my age, but not old enough for my mother to give up on me having babies. I'm 5'7" tall, have shoulder-length brown curly hair and boring blue eyes. My nose is my best feature, something I inherited from my grandmother. I had also inherited her attitude, ability to get into trouble, and inaccurate marksmanship. I was glad about the attitude, The propensity to get into trouble and the poor marksmanship? Not so much.

I work for Vincent Plum Bail Bonds in a job that my mother prayed nightly that I would quit. If someone was charged by the police and didn't want to spend their days in jail while they waited for their turn in front of the judge, they could pay bail. This money would be returned to the felon when they showed up in court for their trial. Not everyone, however, could afford to post bail. So for the price of fifteen percent of the bond and the provision of some collateral, a bondsman like Vincent Plum Bail Bonds will pay the bond on the behalf of the felon. When the felon appears in court, the bondsman gives the collateral back but keeps the fifteen percent.

If the felon doesn't show up for court, the bondsman gets a little cranky. He sends me – the bounty hunter – out to capture the fugitive and return him to the court system, at which point the process starts all over again, just with a higher amount of money that is required to post bail.

If the fugitive needs to be retrieved, two-thirds of the fifteen percent of the bond fee goes to me for capturing the felon. If I use Lula – good friend, retired 'ho and frequent partner – to support me, she gets ten percent of my capture fee, and if I use Rangeman – an ultra-elite security company based in my hometown of Trenton, New Jersey – to support me, they get sixty percent of my capture fee. Bringing in skips is a good deal for me, until you realize that there is no base pay. So if I don't bring the felons back into the court system, I don't earn any money. The problem is that Lula and I are slow bounty hunters. We have an okay capture rate, but it takes us awhile before we're able to capture the felons, and the fact that we do so at all is largely based on luck rather than skill.

Ranger and I were sitting in the Cayenne eating subs, and we were playing twenty questions while we watched Barney Blotto's house. Ranger owned Rangeman, and was my part-time boss. I had been working part-time as a bounty hunter but, because of that no base pay thing, I had also been working part-time as a researcher for Rangeman. The steady work researching helped me do things like pay my rent, buy food, and go wild when Victoria Secret had a sale. Well, maybe not wild, but at least I could do more than salivate over the lingerie. Which was just as well. The staff didn't like it when you left drool marks on the fabric. Trust me, I knew. I'd had a skip once that had been arrested for doing just that. Of course, he did it when he broke into the changing rooms and the fabric was being modeled by various customers. He didn't understand why he had been arrested. Go figure.

In addition to being my part-time boss, Ranger was my long-time friend, and newly acquired lover. I didn't know if we had a stable enough relationship to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. I didn't know what to call us. Our relationship was too permanent to call ourselves fuck buddies or friends with benefits, but our relationship was new and on uncertain grounds and I didn't know if we could call ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend yet either.

I think I'd like to become Ranger's girlfriend, but I still had reservations. Physically, we worked. He was the hottest man I'd ever seen, and that included movie and porn stars. Not that I've been looking. I had a skip that claimed he was a porn star once and Lula and I looked him up on the internet to see if we could find him. We had to wade through a lot of porn to find his site, and judging by his wanger it wasn't worth our time. Lula said it was the most disappointing eight hours she had ever spent and didn't know how he could claim porn star status. I figured she had the professional background to know.

Ranger could claim porn star status, but his hotness was more than what he had under his boxers. Cuban-American in descent, he had the dark brown hair and eyes to prove it. He was muscled where men were supposed to be muscled and lean where men were supposed to be lean. His six-pack was more like a full dozen, and was indicative of the discipline that ruled his life. He listened well, talked periodically, and smiled rarely.

I was the complete opposite, and although I often listened well, I was talkative and smiled constantly. I figured that life was too short to be serious.

Despite our differences, or maybe because of them, Ranger and I got along well. He was the most supportive man that I had ever met and also the most honorable. The fact that his honor didn't always follow standard laws was immaterial. He was kind, generous and loving. He just hid those qualities beneath a tough-guy exterior. I was one of a handful of people who got to know the real Ranger. Lula called him Mr. Mysterio, and that was the way he liked it.

The skip that we were waiting for was wanted for robbing a Girl Guide of her cookies, and judging by the man's size in his picture, he had consumed the evidence. I figured that made him unlikely to run and it should be an easy capture, but Lula had been sick for the past few days and I really needed to bring this skip in. Vinnie was making noises about hiring Joyce Barnhardt again. She had been my longtime enemy from the moment she poured red paint over my new dress on picture day back in kindergarten through to the time I found her shagging my husband of three months on my new dining room table, and I would do anything – even sacrifice an evening in bed with Ranger – to capture this guy so that Joyce didn't get the work. We had already picked up two felons that evening, and if we could pick up Barney Blotto we'd be three for three. The home run associated with that would be getting Vinnie off my back for a while. I'd only have one more outstanding skip, and Ranger and I could try to pick him up after we dealt with Barney.

I hoped to bring in Barney quickly as we were doing surveillance on Mary Lou's street. Mary Lou had been my best friend since Joyce had spilled that paint on me in kindergarten. We had been through a lot together. Bullying by Joyce in elementary school, high school crushes, marriages. She had married her high school sweetheart, Lenny Stankovic, and I had married Dickie Orr, the creep. After our weddings, our lives differed drastically. Mary Lou settled into her marriage and had four kids. I adopted a hamster and got divorced three months after I was married. We were both happy in our own way and, despite our differing life experiences, we remained good friends to this day.

I didn't want Mary Lou to see me though. True, I hadn't seen her for a while, and true, I hadn't talked to her in a couple of weeks. I used to talk to her every day but two months ago, when I broke up with Joe Morelli, Trenton Police Department's finest Detective, she had tried to get me to reconsider a relationship with him. She said that he had put her up to it, but after she hounded me to follow Morelli into matrimonial bliss, I hadn't wanted to talk to her for a while.

The truth of the matter is that I went out with Morelli for a few years in an on-again, off-again relationship. I loved him, but I have since realized that I'm not _in_ love with him and that was why I couldn't commit to a future with him. He was a good man, great dog-father and satisfying lover. His lack of respect for my abilities and his belief that I was a disaster magnet were the two main impediments to our relationship. I didn't think that I could settle down with someone who had so little respect for me and what I could do. Despite his beliefs, he remained one of my best friends and I hoped he always would.

I handled the break-up much better than Morelli did. While I was content to let the relationship die a quiet death, Morelli asked everyone and their brother to breathe new life into it. Mary Lou was asked to talk to me, my sister Valerie was asked to talk to me, my mother was asked to talk to me, and his mother was asked to pray over me. What this meant was that I had a number of people hounding me and Grandma Bella, Morelli's Sicilian scarecrow of a grandmother, cursing me. Luckily, although I'd seen her, I'd been successful at turning around and going in another direction before she spotted me. It was a winning streak I hoped to continue. I knew from experience that Grandma Bella's curses often worked.

Mary Lou was getting closer, and I looked down as I hoped that she didn't see me. "Hey, Steph", she said. Apparently I might have been lucky in capturing skips that evening, but I wasn't lucky in avoiding Mary Lou. She opened the door to the back seat and climbed in with her beagle puppy hopping up on her lap. I didn't want to know what Ranger thought about having a dog in the car. "I haven't talked to you for a while", said Mary Lou.

"That's true. I've been frantically busy", I said. "Vinnie has been bonding people out faster than I can capture them." Vinnie was my cousin, the person the bonds office was named after, and a sexual deviant that would do anything and anybody from ducks to dykes. We'd been trying to cut him out of the family tree for years. To his credit, however, he had let me blackmail myself into a job with him when I desperately needed money. He was the only family member who seemed to understand the challenges of living in a house with my parents and grandmother and only one bathroom, and who would allow me to work for him so that I could make my rent. Of course, he'd been holding that fear of not making rent over my head ever since, and had used it frequently for 'encouraging' me to capture various skips. "Without staff agreement, he resurrected the 'hot girls will come and get you' campaign, and I have skips all complaining that I'm not as busty as the photoshopped ad suggests. We had one skip the other day offer to pay us directly if he could see our assets. Lula almost went for it." I looked across at Ranger, and I could see that he was thinking about smiling.

"I understand that you're busy and I understand why you've let my messages go to voicemail", said Mary Lou. "I was out of line when we last spoke."

I sighed. "Join the crowd. You weren't the only person Morelli roped into talking to me. My sister and mother and grandmother were roped into it as well, and my mother held an intervention. It was horrible, but my grandmother seemed to enjoy herself. She was just disappointed that my mother didn't serve wine and snacks." For that matter, so was I.

Mary Lou laughed. "Are you seeing anyone now?" she asked. I looked across at Ranger, and his lips quirked up slightly. "Oh my God. You're seeing Ranger!" She started fanning herself.

"We're keeping it quiet", I said. "It's not fair to Morelli if we flaunt it."

"Does he know?"

"I told him that something was happening about a month ago, and since then he hasn't asked and I haven't brought it up again. So, technically, he knows, but he doesn't know at the same time."

"Okay, I'll keep it quiet. Lenny and I will have to have you over for dinner. How about tomorrow?" said Mary Lou. "I'd like to get to know you better, Ranger."

"I look forward to meeting your husband", said Ranger, "and dinner would be nice."

I looked at Ranger in surprise. I wasn't expecting that he would want to do couple things like dinner with friends. We had barely introduced the other person to our families. I had only met his family twice, and although he had met my family many times, he hadn't been over for a meal since we had started officially seeing each other. I hadn't wanted to subject him to the 'when are you having kids' discussion.

As far as my parents knew, I hadn't been dating anyone seriously since I broke up with Morelli. My grandmother knew. I had told her after a particularly uncomfortable meal where my mother had invited a new man from the neighborhood for dinner – and he showed up with his bratty triplets. Even those kids were too much for my mother. She handled it by getting shit-faced and passing out in the middle of dinner. When I told my grandmother about Ranger I also asked her to keep it quiet and, for once, she did.

However, my supposed single status caused my mother to continually try to set me up with 'suitable' men from the neighborhood. What this meant was that I had met a lot of desperate men in the last couple of months, and despite my disinterest, my mother lived in hopes of finding someone I was interested in.

I didn't know how to tell my mother that Ranger and I had started to delve into a relationship status. She was as eager to have me quit my job chasing skips as she was for me to settle down and have babies, and she viewed Ranger as a roadblock to me stopping skip chasing. She knew that he periodically helped me in my job, and she interpreted that as Ranger encouraging me to do something dangerous. It didn't help that Morelli had told her that I would have given up skip chasing by now out of ineptitude if it wasn't for Ranger. Ranger was not her favorite person as a result.

Grandma was all for me seeing Ranger on a personal level. She said he had a big package and that was important. She still talked frequently about the time she had seen Ranger in the buff. It had been an item on her bucket list and, although she didn't achieve everything on that list, she said she could die happy having checked off that one item. In fact, it was after that meeting that she spent her Social Security check in Victoria Secret. I didn't have the heart to tell her that she was about four decades too old for him. She saw herself as a cougar, and no amount of discussion otherwise would sway her thinking.

Barney drove up to his house and lumbered out of his car. The car visibly rose and the shocks groaned with relief as he pushed himself to his feet, and he turned and locked the door after himself.

"Let's go", I said. Ranger and I got out of the car, and I opened the back door to let Mary Lou out. We walked quickly towards Barney as I felt in my pocket for my pepper spray, although I didn't think that I would need it. Ranger had wanted me to carry my gun and wear Kevlar as well, but I felt a little silly carrying a gun to a meeting with a four-hundred pound lummox. With those who weren't particularly smart, the potential for them to steal my gun and use it against me was high. Not that it had ever happened before – much.

Mary Lou followed us with her dog as we walked down the street, and Barney saw that we were coming. His face turned white and he hustled up the walkway to his house. "Hunh, hunh", he grunted as he searched frantically for the key to his front door on his key ring. He bounded up the steps with a speed and agility that I didn't expect, and inserted the key in the lock.

Ranger and I got to Barney before he opened the door, and I whipped out a zip tie for restraining Barney's hands. "Bond enforcement", Ranger said as he grabbed a wrist, spun Barney around, and grabbed his other wrist. I secured Barney, locked the door and pocketed Barney's keys as Mary Lou clapped her hands. The senior next door sitting on her porch was leaning so far forward out of interest that she was in danger of toppling out of her chair.

"Damn, the next neighborhood watch meeting will be exciting now", said Mary Lou. "I'll have a great story." She walked over to me, where I was standing beside Barney, and gave me a hug. Ranger left to bring up the car, and Barney started hyperventilating. He stared at the puppy and backed away for a moment. As the puppy approached him to try to eat his undone shoelaces, Barney passed out and collapsed on the ground.

"What did he do, missy?" said the old woman.

"He stole Girl Guide cookies", I said. "And then he didn't go into court."

"He should", said the woman. "I'm sure that the judge would understand why he stole the cookies. Those cookies are seriously good. The chocolate mint ones are the best."

"I like the lemon ones", said Mary Lou.

I shook my head. They didn't know much about eating. The chocolate peanut butter ones were the best. With chocolate and peanut butter in them, they combined two of my favorite foods together. Now if they only had a peanut butter and olive one. I was sure it would be a best seller.

Barney's eyes fluttered open as the puppy ran up to Barney's face and licked him. Barney screamed in terror and a wet spot and a noxious smell appeared from his lower region. He rolled away from the puppy and presented his rear view to the dog, and even the puppy was turned off by the smell. The dog backed away, and pulled Mary Lou after it. "I'll see you later, Steph", she said as she gagged. "Tomorrow at five?" She pulled up her shirt to cover her nose and ran the six houses down the sidewalk to her own place.

Ranger parked the car at the end of the driveway and got out. He came over to look at Barney, his hands on his hips, and then shook his head in resignation and sighed. His lips turned up in an almost smile as he looked at me. "I think this is worth more than sixty percent of the capture fee, babe", he said.


	3. Chapter 3

Ranger took Barney into the station as I guarded the car, the windows all down to try to get rid of some of the smell. Despite Ranger wrapping Barney in an emergency blanket, one that Ranger had taken with him to put in the garbage rather than let it continue to contaminate the car, the smell lingered and I was glad there was a cross breeze and the night was relatively cool. As Ranger returned to the car and got in, I said, "I think I need a shower."

"Me too, babe. Whose apartment should I drive to?"

"My apartment has Rex. Your apartment has Ella." Rex was my attack hamster. Ella was Ranger's housekeeper. "I need to spend some time with Rex. He'll die from a lack of human contact."

"We could always take Rex with us to my apartment."

"You always say that."

"I have a king-sized bed."

"Yes, but because we both sleep in the middle I don't think it much matters."

Ranger smiled a sexy little half-smile. I guessed that he liked sleeping in the middle as much as I did. Even when he tried to sleep on his side, in my sleep I always gravitated towards him. No matter how much I intended to sleep separately, I invariably woke up with my hands down his pants.

It wasn't such an issue now that we were in a relationship of sorts. There had been a few times in the past that I had used Ranger's apartment as a safe house though. He only had one bedroom, but his reasoning for me not sleeping on the couch was that the bed was big enough for the two of us. In theory, that was true. But no matter how much the awake-version of me realized that it would be a bad decision to get it on with Ranger, the sleeping-version of me thought it was an incredibly good idea to cuddle in. Since I had been going out with Morelli at the time, the dichotomy between the two halves of me caused a great amount of guilt.

Morelli and I'd had an understanding of sorts. I relied more on the 'of sorts' part of that agreement, while Morelli relied more on the 'understanding' part. Getting together with other people had been a bit of a gray area for us. Yes, when we'd been engaged our ability to get together with anyone else had been a clear no-no. But then we'd broken our engagement. It was a good decision for us, despite the fact that Morelli would like to get engaged again. That wasn't something I was interested in doing. He just wasn't supportive enough for me, and I needed someone who could support all of me rather than just the part that he wanted to see. Morelli didn't understand my viewpoint. How did you tell someone that, if you married them, you'd probably set a new record for the brevity of marriage before divorce? That would be bad – I had set the last one as well.

So getting together with another person was a bit of a gray area for us, and as far as I knew I delved into it more than Morelli did. The stars had aligned a few times between Ranger and I, and I had discovered the magic of being in bed with him. Morelli was a fun and satisfying lover. Ranger was more. He moved me in a way that I had never experienced before and likely never would again.

Ranger parked at my apartment, picked up his 'go' bag and walked with me into the building. I lived in an older building that was characterized by avocado green appliances and orange and brown bathroom tiles. The place had been built in the seventies and the appliances and décor hadn't changed since. The residents were a good group of people who were remarkably laid back and accepting of all the calamities – stink bombs, firebombs, break and enters, vandalisms, murdered bodies and so on – that I presented to them. One resident told me that they liked watching the soap opera of my life and that it made them more appreciate the saneness of their own. I hadn't, and still don't, know whether that was a good thing.

Mrs. Bestler was playing elevator operator again, and she held the door of the elevator for us. Ranger and I entered and told her that we wanted to go to the second floor. She shut the door and started to breathe through her mouth. "Did you have a good day, Mrs. Bestler?" I said.

"A better day than you, dear", she said. "Were you dumpster diving for clues today?"

I sniffed my shirt. "I must be nose blind. Do I still smell bad?"

"Eau de toilette isn't the same thing as toilet water, dear."

I laughed as the doors opened up and Mrs. Bestler announced that we were at the floor for ladies' handbags and better dresses and public restrooms. I could hear her give a huge sigh of relief as we walked off the elevator and down the hall to my apartment.

I opened the door to my home and took the pulse of the apartment before I entered. Rex was running nowhere, and the sound of his wheel punctuated the quiet stillness of the apartment. I walked inside. There were no notes that had been wedged underneath my door. There were no flowers or pictures or threatening notes left in my apartment for me to find. No mouth breathers or creepy messages on my answering machine. All in all, a good night.

Ranger and I decided to partner shower. We thought it was the most efficient use of both time and hot water since we both wanted desperately to shower. As I took off my clothes, I said, "as much as I always love showering with you, this will be an actual shower rather than an invitation. I feel grimy and stinky and gross, and I don't want you anywhere near my body until I have cleaned off."

Ranger smiled. "As much as I would love to make love right now, I agree that I need to shower first. I think I'll need to wash myself at least three times and likely more like ten before the smell dissipates."

I started the shower and adjusted the temperature. We both shucked our clothing before hopping in, and we each soaped up ourselves five times and washed our hair three times before we decided that we were sufficiently clean. When we got out of the shower, we smelled like Bulgari Green, Ranger's signature scent of body wash.

I had been living almost exclusively at Ranger's for a few weeks while Ranger supported me emotionally after the last time I shot someone, and when I returned to my apartment I had been feeling very unsure of myself. Ranger had helped me then as well. He left my fridge full of food and his favorite body wash in the shower. The scent was orgasmic and having a shower and smelling the familiar fragrance had grounded me in the way that I had needed. Since then, Ranger had spent most nights with me, whether we were at his apartment or at mine. While I had moved many of my things into his apartment and he seemed quite comfortable with that, he was still working his way into mine. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. He had brought doubles of his razor and blades, shaving cream, aftershave and toothbrush and had left them in my bathroom, and in my bedroom there was another pair of running shoes and a couple of changes of workout clothes and Rangeman uniforms. It was convenient, but other than a toothbrush, even Morelli hadn't left traces of himself in my apartment.

I looked at Ranger as I dried my body. He was watching me, his eyes dilated to black in arousal, and I decided to forgo blasting my hair dry with the blow dryer. I looked in the mirror as I combed out my wet hair and, as I finished, Ranger swept my hair over one shoulder, kissed my exposed shoulder blade, and worked his way to the money shot – kissing the back of my neck. As I whimpered, he said, "I like it when you are wearing my body wash, babe. I like it best when that's all you're wearing." And then he proceeded to kiss southwards, and he proved once again that his body wash was an orgasmic scent.

_Please note that I am changing my publishing schedule to every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. For every 50 reviews, in appreciation I will release a chapter early. Thank you for your encouraging response and comments. As always, I am grateful for your input. - Sarah_


	4. Chapter 4

Ranger pulled me into his body on the bed. We were perfectly spooned. Ranger's arm was over my waist and his hand was cupping my breast. I thought about Mary Lou and our last conversation together, the one where she tried to convince me to get back together with Morelli. Her comment was that he was the Italian Stallion, and that he knew his way around a woman. She, like my grandmother, apparently thought bedroom prowess was a requirement in any good marriage. I could see their point. It certainly hadn't been a part of my relationship with Dickie. He had thought that, with a name like Dick, it had been advertising for his large size. He was, however, one of those measurement-challenged men who thought five inches was ten, and when the shit hit the fan in our relationship I informed him that his pride wasn't justified. I think he was more upset about that comment than he was with anything else that I had said. I didn't know what it was about men wanting big wangers, but being large seemed to be important and a source of pride. I had tried to tell Dickie that being small wouldn't have mattered if he had been just a little better at performing. He didn't like that comment any more than he liked me telling him that he was small. Go figure.

"I was thinking", said Ranger as he kissed the back of my neck again. I could feel my lady bits perking up and taking notice. "Maybe it's time for you to think about moving Rex over to my apartment permanently." I froze, and he kissed me until I relaxed and melted in his arms again. "He is, after all, being shunted back and forth so much that I'm sure he's getting confused, never understanding which apartment he'll wake up in."

"So you are asking me to move in with you so that Rex doesn't get confused?"

"Among other reasons."

"I don't know if I'm ready to give up my apartment."

"Then keep it for a while until you're comfortable with the arrangement. It just makes more sense than splitting our time between your apartment and mine, and my apartment does have a king-sized bed."

"And Ella. Don't forget Ella."

"That's true."

"But my apartment has Mrs. Bestler. You couldn't wish for a nicer elevator operator."

"The last time we were here you forgot to lock the door, and she walked in thinking it was her apartment. She couldn't understand why the couch had changed color."

"My apartment has Mr. Wolenski. He's our resident greeter at the door, and I miss it when I don't see him."

"I know it's a big step, babe, but it's a step that I'd like to take with you. Think about it, okay?"

I nodded and said that I'd think of little else.

He smiled as he kissed the back of my neck again, and goosebumps came up. And as he kissed his way down for the third time, I knew that I'd lied. I wouldn't be thinking about anything for quite a while.

I woke up the next morning when Ranger's watch alarm went off. I held tighter to him, and I could feel the laughter rumbling in his chest as he carefully extricated himself from the bed. He turned on the light in the living room so as to not blind me, and changed into his workout gear. "I'm going for a run, babe", he said, and he quietly left the apartment. I think I was asleep again before the door shut.

When he returned, he made the coffee, had a shower and shaved, and got dressed before waking me again. I think I growled at him. We'd had a busy night and I wasn't ready for it to be morning yet. "I have coffee", he said. I could hear the amusement in his voice as he passed the filled mug under my nose a couple of times. I sat up, with my eyes still closed, and he put the cup in my hands and wrapped my fingers around it. He pushed my hair out of my face as I took a sip of my coffee, and as I let the brew kick-start the neurons firing in my brain, I pried my eyes open. "Good morning", he said softly as I looked at him. His lip quirked up in a half-smile, and he leaned down and gave me a tender kiss.

"Good morning", I said. "Did you already go for your run?"

"I did. Do you not remember me getting up this morning?"

I thought back. "No", I said as I shook my head.

Ranger smiled. "You must have been tired. What do you have on for today?"

It was Saturday, and the bonds office was open for a half day. That meant that I was supposed to work only until one, but I had found that a bounty hunter was never truly finished work for the day. Even if you weren't actively looking for a skip, you were still scanning faces everywhere you went. Besides, skips often weren't at home during the standard nine-to-five hours that I was supposed to work. Capturing skips more frequently happened in the evenings or weekends, just because that was when the skips were at home.

"I'm meeting Lula at the bonds office to try to capture Romeo Tilson. He's the one I had wanted to capture with you last night, but we didn't get to because of the stink."

"What's his charge?"

"Three murders. He has an anger management problem."

"Apparently. Were they premeditated?"

"No. He lost his temper and blew up at the victims. In two cases, they were the staff working the night shift at the Cluck-in-a-Bucket. They messed up his order and he retaliated. He then killed his mother because she berated him for getting blood on his clothes when he killed the Cluck-in-a-Bucket staff. She said it was too hard to get out. Apparently he found out that she was right after she had died, because he threw out his blood-splattered clothes and provided the evidence that was needed for an arrest. Morelli is worried about me going after this guy."

"If you want me to go with you after our dinner at Mary Lou's tonight, or even to go with you tomorrow, I'll be free."

"Lula is complaining that I'm using you too much as my partner. She said that there's nothing to do around the office other than filing, and she wasn't going to do that shit if her life depended upon it. Her words, not mine."

Ranger smiled. "She has to be the worst file clerk I have ever seen. I often wonder why Vinnie keeps her around."

"She puts up with him, and doesn't get excited when someone walks in with a duck."

"That has to be a myth. I don't think it's even possible to fuck a duck."

"I don't know. Lula said she was there once when a farmer walked in with a duck, and there was an awful lot of quacking coming from Vinnie's office afterwards. There were so many feathers around the office that it reminded Lula of the time when Mistress Melody brought her feather boas in and one of the boas snapped."

"Do I want to know what Vinnie was doing when it snapped?"

"Probably not. I don't want to know either. There are some things about family that you don't need or want to know, and there are several facts about Vinnie that I'm aware of that fall into that category. After all, I have to interact with him at family reunions."

"That would make it uncomfortable."

"You're telling me. Lucille has tried to get me to snitch on him a few times, but if she knew what was going on she'd tell her father, and that would create a big mess that would result in me losing my job." Lucille's father, Harry the Hammer, was the owner of the bail bonds office. He was a former enforcer for the mob, and his association with the office meant that we got a lot of bondees who were members of the New Jersey Mafia. It was, actually, how Connie Rosolli had heard that Vinnie was hiring. She was the office manager, but had strong ties to the mob. She was tougher, more connected and a better shot than me, and I was lucky that she was a good friend of mine. We got a lot of business from her family too.

"What do you say to Lucille when she asks?"

"I tell her that I'm not in the office very much."

"Probably wise."

"Yes. Vinnie may be a boil on the backside of the Plum family, but he's our boil."

"What is your capture plan for Romeo?"

"He lives in a room in a boarding house on Stark. Lula and I staked out his place for an hour or so a couple of days ago, but we left when the local pimp started to look too interested in Lula and me. Lula said that she knew that pimp, and he was known for abducting women and drugging them until they were willing to do whatever it took to get more drugs. As Lula said, she has already lived that life and she doesn't want to live it again. We decided to be prudent and get out of there."

"Thank you. I can send a couple of guys out to pick Romeo up."

"I'll keep that in mind, and that may be what Lula and I decide to have you do. However, I suspect that Lula will want to try one more time before we turn the file – and Lula's capture fee – over to you."

"It's better to have no capture fee but be alive than it is to have a small capture fee and be dead."

"I know, but Lula counts on those capture fees. Without them, she has trouble paying off the minimum payments on her Amex card. Since she believes that shopping is a sport and that she's in training for the Olympics, she needs the money."

Ranger sat for a moment and looked at me, and I finished my coffee. I didn't know what he was thinking, but I could tell that he wasn't happy. There was a tightness around his eyes. "How about this, babe? How about you and Lula do the setup for the capture – the stakeout and the surveillance or, at least the surveillance until it isn't safe any longer – and when it's time to capture the skip you call me and I'll have someone taken off patrol to come and do the pickup for you? As much as Morelli's an idiot, he's a good cop and his instincts are good. This capture may be a little too dangerous to have Lula as your backup."

"We can do this."

"I'm sure you can, but you don't have to. You're part of the Rangeman team, and we take care of our own. I also think that, if you're doing the setup and surveillance, Rangeman should get fifty percent of the capture fee rather than our standard sixty percent. That means that you'll still be earning forty percent with Lula getting the other ten percent."

"I can't ask you to do that."

"You aren't asking me. I'm telling you that I'll do that. If the guy has that much of an anger management problem, I don't know if I want you near him."

I looked down at the sheets as my need for independence warred with my common sense. I knew that handing the file over to Ranger was the right thing for me to do. Not only did I not want to admit failure though, I didn't like relying on him all the time. Sure, with Ranger's help I've been able to stay on top of the skip chasing, something that has kept Vinnie happy. I looked upon surveillance as dates, however, and I used that time to get to know Ranger better. I didn't look on it as him helping me with my captures. Even if he was.

Asking him for some of the Rangeman staff to help with a specific file because I was nervous, however, seemed like the wrong thing to do. Yes, I had done so in the past – but I had done that after Lula and I had already tried and had failed. I didn't hand a file over willy-nilly. It burned me that I needed to do so now, and I think Ranger could tell that I felt uncomfortable with it. Maybe it was the gritted teeth, maybe it was the way my nostrils flared in irritation, maybe it was the tension in my body. I don't know why, but he knew that I wasn't happy. "Just think about it, okay?" he said. "Remember that there's no shame in handing the file over. We're here if you need us." He kissed the tip of my nose and then stood. "I need to get into the office to review the Beiterman's account. We're reworking their security system. Their previous security company created a couple of loopholes which resulted in a major theft, and they have decided to get a quote from us to see what we can do instead."

"Will you need me to do research on the company or the employees?" Ranger had a number of comprehensive search engines that I used as a researcher that could find out everything from the date you were toilet trained to the last time you sneezed. They were so invasive Morelli often wondered whether the programs were legal. Personally, I thought it was just jealousy that had him say that. The Trenton Police Department didn't have anything nearly as advanced in their arsenal of tools to use.

"If they go forward with the system I propose then, yes, I'll have a number of employees for you to research. I have a meeting with them on Monday, so I have to get the design finished this weekend." He stood. "Do you want to stay at my place tonight? I can bring Rex with me when I go back to the office."

And see, there's the thing. I wanted to stay with Ranger but although it felt right with him, there was a part of me that was resisting. I had thought it was right with Dickie too, but he thought it was right with Joyce Barnhardt – and unfortunately I didn't find that out until after I had married him. I had thought it was right with Morelli and, in all honesty, it was more right than it was with Dickie. But time had shown me that Morelli wasn't the one for me either. Now that I was with Ranger, I was scared to commit. Experience with Dickie and Morelli had showed me that I wasn't the commitment sort of person. I had always thought that Ranger felt the same. Lately, however, Ranger had been making noises about wanting more. It was leaving me confused. I wanted more with him as well. I was just scared that it would all blow up in my face.

When I broke up with Dickie, I was furious. When I broke up with Morelli, I was hurt. But if I let this relationship develop with Ranger and we broke up, I'd be annihilated in a way that Morelli and Dickie hadn't been able to accomplish. Ranger had been my rock for several years. He was the one that I went to when I needed help, and I could always count on him. So self-preservation made me hesitate on taking the next step. I knew that Ranger wanted me to live with him, and I knew that it was a big step for him. I appreciated that he wanted to let me into his life. I was just scared.

Ranger looked at me, and I guess he could see the indecision on my face. He sighed. "It's okay, babe. We'll stay here tonight." He kissed me again. "I've got to go. I'll meet you at the office at four-thirty?"

"Sounds good", I said. I watched him leave the apartment and, after he left, I went to the window to see him walk out of the building and over to his car. He climbed in and, as I watched him pull out of the lot, I whispered, "I love you".

I returned to the bedroom and climbed back into bed again. I pulled Ranger's pillow over, buried in my head to sniff his scent, and promptly burst into tears. Why couldn't I commit? Ranger wasn't Dickie. He wouldn't cheat on me. And Ranger wasn't Morelli. He didn't order me around or berate me for events that were largely out of my control. He was probably as perfect for me as was possible. Yet something had me hesitating. Something had me saying 'what if'. What if I moved in and he didn't want me there anymore? I'd have to move back in with my parents and grandmother until I had my feet under me again, and the concept of living in a house with four adults and one bathroom made me shudder with fear. What happened if he decided I wasn't enough for him and I lost our friendship? I relied on him in ways that I had never relied on anyone before. I didn't know how I'd cope if I lost his friendship. What happened if he thought I was too much trouble?

Morelli used to call me a disaster magnet, and I could see his point even though I didn't like the description. But trouble did have a habit of following me around. Ranger had been getting me out of trouble for years now, but what happened if I became too much trouble to be worth rescuing?

I wasn't worried about Ranger's affection for me. He'd been telling me that he loved me for almost as long as I have known him. At first he treated me with an affection that was usually saved for babies and puppies. Then he progressed to saying that he loved me in a non-wedding sort of way. Lately he'd been leaving off the qualifier, and he was telling me more and more frequently that he loved me. The truth was, I loved him too.

I believed him when he said he loved me. Ranger never said anything he didn't mean. No, his view of me wasn't the problem. The problem was that I didn't think of myself as being enough to keep his interest on a long-term basis. I never had been enough for anyone in the past, and I had a hard time imagining that I ever would.


	5. Chapter 5

By the time I picked up Lula, I was still blotchy-faced and had red-rimmed eyes from the crying jag I had indulged in after Ranger left. Lula took one look at me as I walked into the office and said, "I think I see a trip to Tasty Pastry. You look like you need some happy food."

"I'm still watching my weight."

"Okay, then _I _need some happy food, and I'll buy extra just in case you change your mind. What are we doing today? I know that things are going to go well when we are out. I got a lucky rabbit's foot last night, and I know that we're going to have good luck."

I handed over the three body receipts to Connie for the skips that Ranger and I caught the evening before. "There's only one skip remaining. Romeo Tilson. Ranger says that, if we do the surveillance on Romeo and call it in when we find him, he'll send some patrol guys out to do the collection." Lula didn't look happy. "He also said that, if we did the surveillance work, he'd take less money to account for your cut and my cut, so that we don't have to give up any of our capture fee."

"Hunh."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that he must really love you if he's willing to take less money just to keep you safe."

Great. Something else to think about. I had so many thoughts rattling around in my head that my head felt like it was about to explode.

"I agree with Lula", said Connie as she wrote the checks. "Ranger has it bad."

"I don't know what he has, or how bad he has it."

"What's the problem?" said Lula. "Dr. Connie and Dr. Lula, the love doctors, are in."

"It's just that he wants me to move in with him, and I'm scared." Both Connie and Lula started fanning themselves.

"What are you scared of?" said Connie.

"I'm no good at commitment."

"Maybe that's because you hadn't found the right person to take the ride with", said Lula. "The question is whether you think Ranger could be the right person."

"I think he could, but I thought Morelli was at one time as well."

"I don't know", said Lula. "You were never happy with Morelli the way that you've been happy with Ranger. Even when you were engaged you were never as happy with Morelli."

"Ranger doesn't want to ever get married again."

"Who cares?" said Connie. "Getting married isn't the be-all and end-all that it once was. If you live together, you'll have the same sort of relationship as you would if you were married, without the ring. Are you nervous about living together?"

"No. I just have the fear that he'll throw me out and then I'll have nowhere to go."

"Ranger wouldn't do that", said Lula. "Look, you've been dancing around a relationship with Ranger ever since you met him. You're good friends, first and foremost, and from the smile you have on your face following nights where you do the nasty with him, you are compatible in every way. What more do you want from a relationship than great sex and a best friend? Of course, he can't be your best friend because I'm your best friend, but you see what I'm sayin', don't you?"

I nodded. I did see what she was saying, but no matter what Connie and Lula said, I was still worried.

Vinnie came into the office. "What are you doing all standing around gabbing? There are skips to capture."

"Vinnie", I said, "there is only one outstanding skip – Romeo Tilson. Lula and I are just leaving to do surveillance on him."

"I have another two skips that have just come in, and Tilson is a high bond."

"What are the other two that came in?"

"A couple of dimwits. One was a man who was stealing auto parts from the scrapyard, and he got stuck on the fence as he crossed over. A passerby noticed him dangling there and rescued him, but the parts that he was stealing were still in the scrapyard. So he climbed the fence to get the parts again, threw them over the fence, and tried to get back to the other side so that he could take his parts and run. Only, he got stuck again but this time the police were the ones that helped him down. His defense that he's going with is saying that he'd been climbing the fence to put the parts back – even though they found him on the wrong side of the fence."

"Why would someone want some crusty old parts from a junkyard?" said Lula. "What he needed to get was a nice new Firebird like mine. Who drives a rusty old ass car anyway?" Lula looked at me. "Of course, you drive one, Steph. But then that's because you have a history of blowing your cars up. If you had a new Firebird every time your car blew up, you'd singlehandedly keep the Pontiac dealership in business."

"Hey, it's been four whole months since I've blown up my car!"

"Yeah, but that one was a real beauty of an explosion", said Vinnie. "There were four cars that blew up, all at the same time." My car had been parked at the back of the building with Vinnie's, Connie's and Lula's. Someone came and put a hundred bullet holes in it, and had ruptured the gas tank. The leaking fluids created a flammable puddle, and when some youths walked by and one flicked her cigarette into the puddle, the four cars exploded. It was, according to the police, my best explosion so far. They should know. They had been to a dozen of them at least.

"That was okay by me", said Connie. "I'd been thinking about trading my car in, and the insurance money was greater than the trade-in value of my car. I did well on the transaction."

"I'm just glad that they still make the Firebird in a similar red color", said Lula. "But by getting a new car, I didn't have to put up with that scratch in the paint. I didn't like seeing my baby hurt like that. Do you remember that scratch?"

I nodded. There was no way that I could forget that scratch. Lula had been at the grocery store and another shopper had scraped her car with her shopping cart. The result was a two-inch long scratch on her rear quarter panel. Lula had been furious, and had stomped around for days. She had asked to see the security tapes. When the store wouldn't let her see them, she wanted to boycott the store and, when we said that wasn't practical, she tried to rope Connie and Vinnie and me into staging a protest. She wanted wider car spots to park in, as she said it would be far less likely that another shopping cart could hit her car again if there were wider spots to park in. She had gotten out her gun in preparation for her protest, which scared the crap out of me. So, we refused to protest, which caused her to stomp around a bit more. However, no matter what she said, I knew that I wasn't interested in upsetting the store at all, gun or no gun. They had the best olive selection in Trenton, and I went there to load up so that I could make my favorite olive and peanut butter sandwiches.

"What is the other file, Vinnie?" I asked partly to divert Lula's mind from thinking about the scratch in her car. I could see her thinking about taking out her gun and approaching the store again.

"She's another bright light", he said with a grimace. "The robber must have taken advice from the junkyard thief, because she and her friend broke into someone's house. They were caught when the break-in tripped a silent alarm and the police showed up. They were arrested and charged, and paid bail. As soon as they got out of jail, they went back to the same house and tried to break in again. The same officers responded to the call and said that, never, in all the times that they'd been called out before, did they arrest the same people for the same crime at the same house on the same shift before. They called the two thieves Dumb and Dumber. Only Dumb posted bail using our services. Dumber used another bail bonds company."

"Was the other thief Dumber because they got caught or because they used a different bondsman?" I asked.

Vinnie smiled. "Both", he said.

I laughed as Connie handed me the two additional files. I turned to Lula. "Are you ready to roll? If we are lucky, we could capture Romeo today."

"We're going to be lucky today. I told you, I've got my lucky rabbit's foot."

We left the bonds office and drove to the Tasty Pastry, our local doughnut shop. I had a long and illustrious history with the establishment which started when I was a child and was allowed to press my face up against the display glass as I salivated and tried to decide which doughnut I felt like eating that day. When I was a pre-teen, my love of doughnuts continued and a good portion of my allowance went into the Tasty Pastry's till. As I grew older, I decided that getting employee discounts would be a good idea for my wallet, and I started working there when I was fifteen. When I was sixteen I gave my virginity to Morelli behind the counter, thus proving that doughnuts weren't the only thing sweet on offer in the establishment. When I was eighteen, I was driving to work and saw Morelli in front of the shop and, remembering that he hadn't contacted me after sampling my doughnut hole, I jumped the curb and hit him with my car. I broke his leg and went down in history as the person not to piss off after having sex. More recently, the Tasty Pastry was the place that I went to learn gossip for people in the neighborhood. I used it like my grandmother used funeral homes and the beauty salon, or my mother used the deli to gather intelligence. We all had our preferred places to hear the rumors and news. Sometimes the news was even accurate.

Lula and I motored to the doughnut shop to pick up our standard surveillance fare – a small coffee each and a dozen doughnuts to share. When we were there, Marianne was behind the counter. "Hey, Steph", she said. "Did you hear that Morelli is seeing Terry Gilman again?"

I could feel my face turn white. Terry was the niece of Vito Grizzoli, our local mob boss, and she'd been working in the organization for a few years. She was a former prom queen, and was beautiful, athletic and smart. In short, she was everything I wasn't.

I swallowed hard. "With her connections, it wouldn't make sense for Morelli to hook up with her. It would throw his career in jeopardy."

I thought I was doing a pretty good job at keeping the screaming in my head, but Lula took one look at me and decided that it would be a good idea for us to leave and leave quickly. In the fastest doughnut selection that I had ever seen Lula make, we bought our coffees and our two dozen doughnuts. We had only planned on buying one dozen, but Lula knew that I was a stress eater, and I think she wanted to make sure there were enough doughnuts left for her after I descended upon the doughnut box.

She grabbed the doughnut boxes and I grabbed the coffees, and we motored out to our resting place on Stark Street. Twenty minutes later, I had finished eating my dozen doughnuts and was eyeing Lula's. "Oh, no you don't", said Lula. "If you eat another doughnut, you'll make yourself sick. You don't have the fine gorging abilities that I have developed over the years. You're not a big, beautiful woman like I am. Of course, if you keep eating doughnuts like you just did, you'll become a big, beautiful woman sooner than later."

"I couldn't help it. My stomach feels squishy."

"Is that because you heard that Morelli is seeing Terry? Or is it because you heard that Morelli was seeing anyone at all? Or is that squishy feeling because you just ate twelve doughnuts?"

"I don't know. I don't think it's because I ate a dozen doughnuts." I grabbed another one from Lula's box and took a bite. It was a Boston Cream, and that made me sad. It was Morelli's favorite kind of doughnut.

"What do you care if Morelli is seeing another woman? You have another man in your life. Do you expect him to moon after you for forever?"

I looked down at my hand as I shoved in the last of the Boston Cream. I licked the custard off fingers thoughtfully.

"I don't think I care as to whether Morelli is seeing someone else, as long as it isn't Terry or Joyce. Joyce is a skank, and Terry is too perfect – or she would be if she wasn't working for the mob. She has wanted Morelli since they dated in high school. If there was anyone that Morelli cheated on me with, it was Terry. He would know that getting together with her would upset me."

"You getting together with Ranger probably upset him as well", said Lula. She slapped my hand away as I reached for another of her doughnuts.

"I know, but he expected it."

"Doesn't mean he liked it any more by knowing that it was probable."

"But Terry? She could kill his career. She isn't worth the risk."

"Morelli probably thinks that Ranger gets you into the kind of situations that you could get killed in, and that your association with him isn't worth the risk."

"Yeah, but I'm not fighting against crime and dating someone who lives a life of crime. I'm fighting crime and potentially living with someone who also fights crime. Ranger and I are working on the same side."

"Uh-hunh. I doubt that's the way that Morelli sees it."

I snatched another doughnut before Lula could stop me, and jumped when the pimp from the other day opened my door and yanked me out of the car. "What the hell?" I said. First Morelli and Terry, then Lula not willingly sharing her doughnuts, and now a pimp grabbing me and getting into my personal space? How much more could I take?

"I saw you watching me", he said.

"We weren't watching you." My stomach, nicely filled with fourteen doughnuts, started to roil.

"You were watching me. You wanted a little of the Kanye to yourself. You're a fine one and would make a good 'ho. You don't quite have the attributes, but you're pretty enough."

Becoming a 'ho wasn't my life ambition, and the thought of being forced into it was a little too much for me to take. I started to gag, and the pimp let me go and jumped back. He didn't jump back far enough, however, and I projectile vomited all fourteen of those doughnuts onto his chest.

"That's disgustin'", he said. I pretended to gag again and he stepped back another three feet. I used the diversion to give me time to get in my car, start it up, and peel away from the curb.

"See?" said Lula. "I told you that rabbit's foot would be lucky."


	6. Chapter 6

Lula's phone rang, and she put it on speaker. "Where are you?" asked Ranger. "I'll be there in three minutes."

"I'm sorry I texted you. The crisis has been averted", said Lula. "Steph threw up on Kanye, which allowed us to get away."

"Are you coming down with something, babe? Should we cancel Mary Lou tonight?"

"No", I said. "I think it was the fourteen doughnuts that did it. I'll be good to see Mary Lou."

"Okay. I'll meet the two of you at the bonds office in a few minutes, and you can tell me about your encounter with Kanye then." He hung up the phone.

"Damn", I said.

"Does your stomach feel less squishy now?" said Lula.

"Now it's squishy for a different reason."

"Why is it squishy now?"

"I don't want to tell Ranger about what happened."

"Why not? It's not like he'll yell at you like Morelli yelled at you."

And that's the thing. I thought I deserved to be yelled at. I knew that I should have been more aware of my surroundings. I should have been concentrating more on what was happening around me than I was on snagging another doughnut from Lula's box. The situation was my fault.

I arrived at the bonds office. Ranger's car was already there, and I felt bad for pulling him away from the work that he had to do that day. I walked into the office and he had his 'not happy' look on his face. I cowered in front of him and shook for a minute, then sucked in my fear and faced him with bravado. I was still shaking, and I didn't know if I was shaking because I was scared about what had happened with Kanye or scared because I was afraid of Ranger's reaction. I rather thought it was the latter.

He stood and gathered me into a hug, and just held me for a minute. He kissed the top of my head and rubbed my back. "Glad to see you safe, babe", he said quietly. After assuring himself that I was okay, he sat on the sofa and tugged me down beside him and said, "tell me what happened."

"It's my fault", I said. "Lula and I were eating doughnuts and talking, and Kanye approached the car when I wasn't paying attention. He opened the door and pulled me out of the car, and told me that I'd make a good 'ho even though I wasn't very pretty. That was when I couldn't hold back my squishy stomach, and all fourteen of the doughnuts that I'd eaten came up and all over him. He jumped back to try to get out of the blast, but he wasn't fast enough. When I pretended to gag again, he stepped a few feet further away and I got in the car, turned it on and got the hell out of there."

"Why weren't your doors locked?" said Ranger.

"The lock on my driver's side was shot out."

Ranger looked at Lula, and she put her hands in the air. "Not my fault", she said. Lula loved using her gun. Unfortunately, she wasn't very good with it. It wouldn't have been the first time she'd hit my car when trying to capture a skip. Of course, she had hit me just as many times as she'd hit my car.

"No", I said. "It wasn't Lula's fault. Rocky Wilonni is just as bad a shot as Lula."

"I'm not a bad shot", said Lula. "I just keep buying guns with sights that are broken. Just like Stephanie has cars with problems, I buy guns with problems. It's the strangest thing."

"Tell me about Rocky", said Ranger. He wasn't smiling.

"We were in the Stop 'n Go, and Lula was contemplating whether she should get the red slushie or the blue slushie."

"It's an important question", said Lula. "Both are good."

"So anyway, Lula was trying to decide what flavor of slushie she should get when Rocky tried to gun down his girlfriend in the parking lot. He hit my car square in the driver's side lock instead, and it popped the lock open for me. I haven't been able to lock it since. So I grabbed Lula and got out of there before the police showed up and Morelli yelled at me again."

"So why weren't you driving a fleet car?" He sounded a teeny bit exasperated, and I tensed once more. "You need a car with a working lock, babe."

"I didn't want to have to rely on you again. I'm always borrowing a car for one reason or another, and it isn't right. I should be able to do this on my own."

"We're a team, babe. And if there is something I can do to make you safer, whether it is to lend you a car or to provide a team to do a capture, I want to do that for you." His hand slipped under my hair and he massaged the tense muscles on the back on my neck. "Next time, borrow the fleet car. There is an extra available for whenever you want to use it."

"You meant that you bought Stephanie a car, just in case she needed it?" said Lula. "Fucking A. Your car probably has a better stereo system than Stephanie's. Her stereo has a whine when you put the volume up to 24."

"I'm surprised that you have any hearing left if you listen to it with the volume at 24", said Ranger.

"My ears ring for half an hour after I've been in the car with Lula", I said.

Ranger thought about smiling.

"I'll have one of the guys on patrol pick up your car from the bonds office and take it in to be fixed", said Ranger. "I think Cal and Rafael are available. They'll pick up the keys from Connie in a few minutes." He took out his phone and texted Cal and Rafael.

"I can take care of it myself", I said.

Ranger looked at me. I could tell that he still wasn't happy, but his eyes went soft as he said, "let me, babe. I need to take care of you. If you want to be part of this relationship, you have to take my protectiveness as well. It's a part of who I am, and I'm more protective of you because I love you. I can't turn it off just because you want to be independent."

Damn. Something else for me to think about.

"How about I drive you back to your apartment, and you can have a shower and a nap. I'll pick you up again at four-thirty."

I nodded jerkily and stood. As I followed Ranger out of the bonds office, Lula gave me the thumbs up sign. However, I knew that yelling at me in front of people wasn't Ranger's style. I knew I wasn't out of the woods yet.

As we got in the car, Ranger turned to me. "You look like I'm about to hit you", he said.

"I'm just getting prepared for you to yell at me."

"I won't yell at you."

"It was my fault though. It was a situation that shouldn't have happened if I had just been paying attention."

"I consider this my fault. If I hadn't spooked you with asking you to move in, you would never have been eating your fourteen doughnuts and you wouldn't have had your attention diverted."

"I was a bit upset about that, but I was also upset because I heard that Morelli was starting to see Terry Gilman."

"So?"

"Terry is associated with the mob. He could screw up his career by seeing her."

Ranger's face took on his 'worried' look. At least, I think it was his 'worried' look. It could have been his 'not happy' look. The two looks were very similar. "Are you sure it's his career that you're thinking of?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, are you sure it isn't jealousy that Terry is getting together with Morelli? Are you sure it isn't that you secretly want to get back together with him?"

"No, I don't want to get back together with him", I said. "He can get together with anyone other than Terry and Joyce."

"I understand Joyce. She's done half of Trenton's male population and could be bringing any number of STIs to the relationship. In addition to the history you have with her, there is an honest concern about the safety in Morelli getting together with her. I don't, however, understand the concern of Morelli getting together with Terry. She's discreet and doesn't sleep around."

"Terry has had a thing for Morelli since they were in high school. Apparently I wasn't the only person who lost their virginity to Morelli. Terry did as well, and I always thought that Morelli had wished that I was a little like Terry. She's beautiful and athletic and smart. She's everything I'm not."

"So you don't want Morelli to settle down with someone you perceive to be better than you."

"I guess so."

"You want Morelli to pine after you for the rest of your days and hearing that he isn't upsets you."

"You make it sound like I'm being unfair."

"I'm just reiterating what you're saying, babe."

"It just hit me, that's all."

"You're going out with me. Aren't you happy with me?"

"Of course I am. You know that."

"Don't you want Morelli to be happy as well?"

"I do. I just want him to be happy with someone other than Terry."

"Because she is everything you perceive that you're not."

"She's perfect for him."

"And you are perfect for me. You say you're not beautiful or athletic or smart, but that's not how I see you. You are incredibly intelligent and more importantly, you are resourceful and determined and tenacious. You say that you aren't athletic, but you've been working hard in the gym with me and you're learning fast. You are far better at self-defense now than you were a few months ago, and you'll only continue to get better. You say that you're not pretty, but you are the most beautiful woman that I have ever met. You have a body that has me standing up and taking notice whenever you are in the same room, and you have the kind of beauty that reels you in. I'm not the only person that thinks so, either. Just think of the number of admirers that you've had, even in the recent past." Ranger was right. Just a couple of months ago I'd had two secret admirers. I had only briefly met both of them, but they had become infatuated with me and believed that I wanted to settle down with them. They each had made plans to kidnap me. They had both been captured and put in jail, but it was a scary time all around. "I think you are a much better person for me than Terry ever would be. Let Morelli find someone equally as good for him as you are for me, and wish him well. Your relationship with him is over, babe. Let him find some peace and happiness too."

Ranger started his car and passed Cal and Rafael as they drove into the lot. He stopped and spoke out of his window and told them where to take the car and what needed to be done to it. Then he powered up his window and drove to my apartment.

"What are you thinking, babe?" he said when the silence grew too long.

"I'm still wondering why you aren't yelling at me."

"Yelling is a sign of disrespect and anger is a wasted emotion. We are taking the steps to ensure it doesn't happen again. If you give me the file", he said, "I can have a team provide surveillance on his house to see if we can capture him."

"Lula and I will get him."

Ranger turned tense as he pulled into my parking lot. "Babe", he said.

"This is my capture", I said. I didn't know why I was being so stubborn. I just felt strongly that I shouldn't hand over the file.

Ranger sighed. "We'll go after our dinner at your friends' to see if we can capture him then", he said. He drove up to the doors of the building and waited for me to get out.

I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. "Thank you", I said.

"I'll drive you to Rangeman tomorrow and you can pick up your replacement wheels then. In the meantime, have a shower and relax, and I'll see you in about two hours." He gathered me into a hug, and kissed me softly on the lips.

"Ranger?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you for not getting upset. I don't like it when people yell at me."

"Babe."


	7. Chapter 7

I had a long hot shower as I tried to figure out why Ranger hadn't gotten upset. When I couldn't figure that out I tried to figure out my relationship with Ranger and why he wanted me around. I showered until I ran out of hot water and, after blasting my hair dry, I still hadn't figured it out, so I assumed my favorite thinking position – lying back on the bed, my face covered with my pillow. When I still couldn't figure it out, I decided that my favorite thinking position was very similar to my favorite napping position and, despite my confusion over Ranger, I fell asleep.

Two hours later, I woke as Ranger lifted the pillow off my head. "Thinking or napping, babe?"

"It started out as thinking and progressed to napping", I said. Ranger gave a half-smile.

"Did you figure out anything when you were thinking?"

"No. I still can't understand why you weren't upset with me. You not yelling will take me some time to get used to. I'm so used to Morelli yelling at me and being scared to tell him anything as a result that having you not yell at me is something new."

"Have I ever yelled at you?"

"No, but you weren't going out with me before either. As my mother says, I'm a trial and would frustrate a saint."

"I will never yell at you, and you aren't a trial. I'm uncomfortable with the thought that you aren't telling me things when they happen in fear of what I'll say though. We're a team, but I can't help you if I don't know what is going on. Take for instance your busted lock. Borrowing a car while it is repaired is such a simple thing, yet from what you said it sounds like you were afraid to tell me about it. Is that right?"

"I didn't want you to yell at me for being in the convenience store at the precise moment that Bucky shot his gun."

"It wasn't your fault, and that's what I'm saying. You being afraid that I'll yell is stopping you from getting help when you need it, and that's a dangerous thing."

I walked into the bathroom and since my hair was flattened from lying on the bed thinking, I pulled it back into a ponytail. Ranger followed me into the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe while I got ready. I applied a light dusting of makeup and two coats of mascara for luck, and stood back and surveyed myself. I was as ready as I would ever get.

"What about if I promise not to yell at you?" said Ranger as he watched me.

"It's just hard. I don't know if it is learned reaction or not, but when something goes wrong I have a squishy feeling in my stomach, and my immediate reaction is to worry that you'll yell at me. If it had been Morelli, I would have done whatever it took to ensure he didn't find out. He usually found out anyway." I walked into the bedroom and pulled from the closet my favorite pair of distressed jeans that had the holes in just the right places, a black tank top and a black blazer. I dressed quickly and, when the blazer was on, I rolled the cuffs and pushed the sleeves up my forearms.

Ranger pulled me to him and gave me a deep kiss. Just as I was calculating how much time we had before we had to be at Mary Lou's and how long it would take to get there and whether we had time for a quickie, Ranger pulled away. He kissed me on the tip of my nose and said, "I love you, okay? And that means that I will never yell at you, no matter what happens to you, no matter if it is your fault or not. Yelling doesn't solve anything and I don't agree with it."

"I love you too", I said. "I just don't understand you."

Ranger smiled suddenly, and I stopped to appreciate the view. It was rare that Ranger gave a full-wattage smile, and doing so kicked his 'hotness' rating into the stratosphere. "Then think of the fun you'll have as you try to figure me out." He gave me another quick kiss and said, "we have to go if we don't want to be late."

Ranger captured my hand as we walked out to the car, and I found the simple contact to be grounding. For the first time since I had woken up this morning, the squishy feeling in my stomach was fading away. "Do we have time to get Mary Lou some flowers?" I said.

Ranger smiled and, when we got to the car, he handed me a bouquet. "I already thought of it", he said.

He saw me into the car and shut the door after me, then rounded the hood and slid into the driver's seat. "I have to warn you", I said. I tensed again. "Lenny, Mary Lou's husband, is a little touchy feely."

"Is he inappropriate with it?"

"Yes. I have never seen why Mary Lou likes him. She got together with him when they were in high school, but even then I didn't see the attraction. He's a flirt, and an alcoholic, and often crosses a line. When we were at their wedding rehearsal dinner, he cornered me and made a pass at me." Ranger tensed. "I didn't know how to tell Mary Lou so I didn't. To this day she doesn't know."

"I'm surprised you didn't use your signature move on him."

"To sack him? I thought of it, and I told him I would if he ever did that to me again. I think he took me seriously because he's never tried it, but he does try to pat my ass every time I'm near him."

"Despite his infidelity, does Mary Lou have a good relationship with him?"

"I love Mary Lou, but when she got engaged I had already been engaged to Dickie for a few weeks. I think the fact that I was engaged was one of the driving forces behind her decision to get married. Because she was desperate to get married, she settled on the first person who asked, even though he wasn't right for her. Lenny is a womanizing jerk, and Mary Lou has closed her eyes to the fact that he's had several affairs on her. She says that he's a good husband because he goes to work and works hard for his money, and he earns enough that she can stay home and look after the kids. That's important to her. Personally, I would have preferred to be independent from him and working in my own job."

"What does he do?"

"He's a plumber and he owns his own business. I think he does alright by it. At least, he earns enough to support Mary Lou and their four kids and to still have money left over to support whatever honey he has on the side."

"I don't really understand infidelity", said Ranger. "Willingness to have an affair is probably a sign that the relationship isn't a good one."

"That makes me a little uncomfortable to agree to that", I said. "After all, we'd hopped into bed together several times when I was seeing Morelli."

Ranger smiled. "And that proves my point. Morelli wasn't the best person for you, babe. That's why you were willing to cheat on him, and that's why you are no longer with him." He turned down Mary Lou's street. "Which house is it again?"

I pointed him in the direction of a house with a variety of kids' bicycles left haphazardly out the front. Within minutes, we were ringing the doorbell.

Lenny came to the door. He was just slightly taller than me and he had a significant beer belly. "Steph!" he said, and he pulled me into a hug. His hands drifted south and he patted my ass. The beagle puppy ran up between us and barked shrilly, and I extricated myself from Lenny's grasp with relief. I looked at Ranger. He did not look happy. I was glad that I'd warned him.

Mary Lou walked through from the kitchen. "Hey, Steph", she said, and she gave me a hug. She turned to Ranger and pulled him into a hug, and she tried to pat his ass as well. It was my turn to not look happy. "Let's sit on the patio. The kids are running through the sprinkler. This will be one of the last warm days of the summer. I can't believe that school starts again on Tuesday."

"Are you looking forward to that?" I asked.

Mary Lou smiled. "You'd better believe it. Every time I go back-to-school shopping, I feel like singing that song about it being the most wonderful time of the year. I know that it's a Christmas song, but it feels so much more appropriate for back to school instead." She turned to Ranger. "What would you like to drink?"

I was a little annoyed with Mary Lou for focusing on Ranger. Didn't she see he was taken? "Just a cola for me", I said as Ranger looked at me and waited for my answer. I wanted to be on my toes around Lenny. Ranger asked for a glass of water.

"Come on, have a beer with me, buddy", said Lenny.

"Thanks, but I have to drive", said Ranger. "Besides, after we leave here tonight Steph and I have some work to do, and I want to be able to perform."

"Is that what you call it? Work? I personally wouldn't consider it work to be with Steph." Ranger just looked at him, and Lenny shifted uncomfortably. "Well, if you won't have a beer, do you mind if I do? I go all day long and look forward to my frosty at night."

Judging by the flush in his cheeks and the brightness in his eyes, he'd been partaking of the frosties long before we had arrived. I gave Ranger a commiserating look and carried the flowers into the kitchen, where Mary Lou was making an antipasto tray. "These are for you", I said.

"I'm sorry that Lenny is so forward", she said. "He's such a loving person and he's so demonstrative that he forgets sometimes that not everybody appreciates it."

"It's okay, Mary Lou. I understand that you're in a tough position."

Mary Lou flashed me a relieved smile and took the flowers from me. "Thank you", she said. "It's been a long time since someone bought me flowers."

"It was Ranger's idea."

"They're beautiful. How about you take out the appetizers, and I'll get the blooms into water."

I left her to her flower-arranging and carried the antipasto tray through to the patio. As if a bell went off, children poured into the room from every direction and descended upon the tray like a swarm of locusts. Just minutes after the tray had been put down, the children had decimated the food until there was only a small ham cube left. As the dog saw his opportunity, he jumped up and scooped up the remaining piece of meat before one of the children noticed it.

Lenny shook his head. "Brats are like that", he said. "They are always hungry and eating you out of house and home. Never have kids. They aren't worth it."

I smiled. "You love your kids", I said. At least, I hoped he did. Mary Lou looked upon him as being a good father, and that was one of the things she loved best about him. If he wasn't a good father, it would be another lie their relationship was based on.

Lenny took a large mouthful of beer and belched loudly. "No", he said, "Mary Lou loves the brats. Personally, I think they bleed all the life out of you, and they make you old before you know it."

I didn't know what to say, and I looked at Ranger. He apparently didn't know what to say either, but that didn't surprise me. He was someone who typically kept his own counsel at the best of times. If he was unhappy about something, he became even quieter. I could tell by the tension around his eyes that he was not happy.

"So I know what you do, Steph", said Lenny. "You chase men and put them in jail, kind of like a wannabe police officer." I sucked in a breath. "What do you do, Ranger?"

"I do basically the same thing", said Ranger. "However, I also own my own company providing security services."

"You're a rent-a-cop service?"

"Something like that", said Ranger.

Mary Lou came out and said, "what did I miss?"

"Ranger was just telling me that he owns a rent-a-cop business", said Lenny. "My cousin is an out-of-work security guard that has been bouncing around since he failed at the academy. I should tell him to apply to your company."

"He certainly is welcome to", said Ranger, "but I don't usually hire anyone unless they have military training behind them. Applicants go through rigorous testing and an extensive interview process. Additionally, we aren't hiring anyone right now. Although our company is growing quickly, we have just recently gone through a hiring drive and have been able to identify a few suitable people."

"That's too bad. My cousin wants to get a job where he can shoot his gun. I know that Steph has been able to kill a few people in the line of duty, and that's the kind of job that he wants."

I froze. I had killed three people during my time as a bounty hunter, and I wasn't proud of any of them. Each kill had caused me more and more problems. With the last one, the resulting stress eating from the shooting resulted in me going up a dress size. I was still losing all the weight that I had gained. It was fun going on, but it was a bitch coming off again.

Ranger slid his hand into mine and squeezed gently. "Killing someone, whether it is in the line of duty or not, takes a piece of your soul away", he said. "I would never hire a trigger happy person to my staff because of that. While I want my staff comfortable with a gun, I hope that they never have to use it."

"Hunh", said Lenny. He didn't sound like he believed Ranger.

"How is work going, Steph?" asked Mary Lou.

"It's going well. Vinnie has kept me incredibly busy and I've been working overtime hours on his files, and I also been working at Rangeman doing research. Rangeman provides the stability in income that I need, and Vinnie provides the excitement and variety in my job that I crave. Between the two I am able to cover my bills and save a little for the future."

"That's good", said Lenny. "If you were my wife, though, you wouldn't crave excitement. I'd be everything that you needed." He put his hand down to his privates and adjusted himself. "That's what I used to tell Morelli as well. He didn't understand how you could keep your little woman at home and make her satisfied. I tried to give him pointers, but he never listened to me." I shuddered to think of the pointers he'd recommended. I thought it explained some of the reason why Morelli hated to visit Lenny and Mary Lou.

"I think Steph would be bored silly if she had to stay at home with the kids", said Ranger with a smile. "I think that would be one time that Steph would be happy to use her gun, but I don't know if it would be on me as I was the only encouraging her to look after kids all day and night, or whether it would be on herself for the boredom and irritation of staying at home. I can remember the last time she broke a rib. She was frustrated when I encouraged her to go to bed and I think the only reason she agreed to it was because she had taken medication to help her deal with the pain and the pills made her sleepy and dizzy."

"It definitely wasn't the most enjoyable time of my life", I said.

Ranger smiled. He remembered how grumpy I had been with the enforced need for rest.

"Having children is a blessing", said Mary Lou. She sounded like she was saying it by rote.

"Not you too", I said with a groan. "My family is all encouraging me to settle down and have kids. I don't want them, though, and I don't think it's a good idea for me to have children if I don't want them."

Mary Lou smiled, but her smile was a bit unfocused. Although Mary Lou was little, she could hold her alcohol well, but looking at her slightly blurry smile I realized that Mary Lou had probably started drinking at the same time as Lenny had. "I love my kids", she said.

"I know you do. You're living the life that you've always wanted – and so am I. I've never been enthused about having children. You're like Valerie though, and having children is important to you. When I was with Dickie, I never questioned what I wanted and just assumed that going the traditional way of getting married and having kids was the way to go. As upsetting as breaking up with Dickie was, he actually – in hindsight – did me a favor. I would never have been happy living that sort of traditional life with anyone, let alone him."

"I still don't understand why you broke up with him", said Lenny. "After all, he was just having an affair on you. A woman has to understand that a man has needs far beyond what one woman can satisfy."

I looked at Ranger, and he looked at me. He gave me one of his half-smiles. "I don't know", said Ranger, "Steph is more than enough for me."

"That's Steph", said Lenny. "She's a sexual bunny. I remember all the comments about her written on the bathroom stalls." Ranger looked irritated again.

"I remember them as well", I said. "I had boys I didn't even know inviting me out with the promise of giving me a good time. I have since discovered that Joyce Barnhardt wrote a lot of those comments."

"What did she know of your sexual habits?" asked Lenny. His face brightened. "Do you swing both ways? Could I watch you with Joyce? That would be so hot." He looked across at Mary Lou glaring at him. "I mean, it would be hot if you got together with Mary Lou."

I forced a laugh. "I have all I need in Ranger."

"Morelli's been looking pretty grumpy lately", said Lenny. "I saw him at church the other week, and he looked devastated."

"What was Morelli doing in church?" I asked. I was surprised. Morelli, like me, believed in a God. He just didn't care for the organized religion and the devout praying-over-you practices that his mother and grandmother subscribed to. He hated going to church and only went on major holidays and when his mother and grandmother dragged him to it.

"He said he was praying for strength", said Lenny.

I was about to question Lenny as to why Morelli needed strength, but I decided I didn't want to know after all. I wasn't sure if I would like the answer. I didn't wish Morelli harm or sadness. I didn't want to get my revenge. I didn't break up with Morelli to be cruel. I broke up with him because it was time. We were no longer good together. But because I didn't wish him ill, I didn't like hearing that Morelli was upset enough with his life that he was turning to God.

"So, you're a stay-at-home mother", said Ranger to Mary Lou. "What do you do, Lenny?"

"I'm a turd wrangler. I'm the leading shit whisperer in the city."

Ranger looked at him blankly. "Okay, then", he said. He turned to Mary Lou. "How old are your kids?"


	8. Chapter 8

I looked at Ranger in the car as we were doing surveillance on Romeo's house. We had already gone to Romeo's room and looked around, but he wasn't there. Ranger had used his lock picks and broken in, and we were both appalled at the state of the room. We had to look very carefully to make sure that Romeo wasn't hidden under the garbage distributed around the area.

We were now doing surveillance, hoping that we would find Romeo and be able to take him in. Vinnie would appreciate me bringing in such a high bond. As I thought back on our disaster of an evening, I thought an apology was in order. "I'm sorry", I said. "Mary Lou and I used to be as close if not closer than sisters. We did everything together, but when I broke up with Dickie and had a single life, and Mary Lou stayed married with Lenny and went the traditional route, we started growing apart. I would still do anything for her, even put up with her husband, and I know that she'd do anything for me. However, we don't have much in common anymore. Spending time with her and Lenny, however, always serves as a reminder to me of the hell that would have been my life if I had stayed with Dickie. I could have been living Mary Lou's life, and that would have been a difficult place to be."

"Do you think she regrets marrying Lenny?"

"I don't know. I don't think she regrets marrying in general, although I suspect that she regrets marrying Lenny specifically. She was furious when he cornered me outside the bathroom tonight. At first I thought that she was mad at me for sacking him, but then I realized that she was mad at him for accosting me in the first place."

"And so she should have been. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Well, we had been talking about my signature move earlier in the evening, and I didn't want Mary Lou to be disappointed at not seeing it."

Ranger smiled. "She seemed pretty happy when she saw her husband rolling around on the floor."

"She was. I suspect that Lenny will be sleeping on the sofa tonight."

"If he's lucky. The dog looked like he had claimed the spot, and he didn't look like he wanted to share."

"Hopefully the dog wins the tug-of-war then", I said. "I'd be much happier thinking that Lenny was sleeping on the floor."

"So Lenny is a plumber?"

"Yes, and he has the plumber's crack to prove it. His pants are always sliding down. I think it's because his belly is so large that there are no hips for his pants to hang on to. They slide down his torso like a greased monkey slides down a pole. It takes me back to the skip I took in that covered himself in Vaseline with the intent that I'd never be able to catch him. I did, but he seemed to have fun while I ran around chasing him. I had to tackle him to the floor, and he wasn't wearing any clothes." I leaned across to him and gave Ranger a kiss. "I just want to make sure you know that I appreciate you."

Ranger smiled. "Appreciate me? That wasn't quite what I was going for, but I'll go with it."

"Seriously, there aren't many men out there who are as honorable or as respectful as you. I could have ended up with a Lenny in my life. I'm glad I'm with you instead."

"I'm glad that you're with me as well", he said.

And see, that's one of the differences between Ranger and Morelli. Morelli would have turned it into a sexual conversation and told me that he would like it a lot better if I was getting it on with him instead of just being with him. Ranger understood that I meant something much greater than simply an appreciation for satisfying a sexual itch. Morelli had a large libido and often acted like a dog in heat. Ranger's love was more encompassing. Yes, the sex between us was magical. But our relationship was so much more than just about sex. Ranger was in love with all aspects of me, not just my body. There were times when my relations with Morelli made me feel more like a piece of meat – a well-loved piece of meat – but more like a piece of meat than I was a person. He rarely said hello to me without pulling my shirt out to appreciate my assets and almost everything had a sexual connotation to it. He was fun in bed, but he didn't take joy in cuddling afterwards. Ranger liked all aspects of me. He liked talking to me and was interested in what I had to say, and he didn't need to make a conversation sexual to show that he was interested. I had more of an emotional connection to him.

And he liked to cuddle following sex. That was what I found the most confusing of all. It was like sex with Ranger was about the closeness, an expression of the emotional connection. It was more than just a physical act. That scared me, and as I sat there I realized that I knew how to respond to the physical, but I wasn't sure if I had what it took to connect emotionally. I'm not even sure that I knew how.

Ranger reached over and clasped my hand, and he squeezed it slightly. He lifted my hand and kissed my fingers. "I love you", he said.

"I love you too", I said, and I was proud of myself because I didn't even stumble on the words. I was getting more used to Ranger saying the 'L' word to me, and I was getting more used to saying it back to him. It still felt a bit awkward. It was one thing to acknowledge it privately in my own head. It was another to admit it out loud. I had been acknowledging it in my head for few months now. Even when I was still dating Morelli, I acknowledged to myself that I loved Ranger as well. However, I was _in_ love with Ranger as well as loving him, and I wasn't _in_ love with Morelli. But then, that's why I had broken up with Morelli, wasn't it?

"You look like you're on the edge of a cliff and staring down, babe", said Ranger.

"Just coming to some realizations. Our visit with Lenny and Mary Lou has made me think about differences in men."

"Is that a good thing?"

"I'm not normally an introspective sort of person", I said. "I've been doing a lot of navel gazing ever since I killed Brodie. It's unusual for me."

"Anything I can help with?"

"Thanks, but I think I'll have to muddle through this on my own."

"You know where I am."

I lifted his hand and nuzzled it with my cheek. "I know."

I watched the house a little longer, and about fifteen minutes later, Romeo came sauntering down the street. "That's him", I said. I checked the picture again, but I knew it was definitely Romeo.

Ranger and I got out of the car and started on an intersecting course. A group of youths stared at us as we walked down the street, and two steps into our walk Kanye broke out from the group, came up to stand in front of me, and said, "there she is. Did you miss me, baby? Are you ready to eat a little Kanye meat? I could make you into a successful 'ho. I have the best in the business, and I treat my 'hos better than anyone else." He approached me in the front and his friends surrounded me around the sides and to the back.

"I'm not interested, thanks."

Kanye stopped in front of me and, when I moved to the right to g et around him, he moved accordingly to block me in. When I moved to the left, he again moved with me. Ranger stopped walking and looked at Kanye. "Step away from her", he said.

"Naw. She's my bitch. Get your own bitch."

Ranger inserted himself in the space between Kanye and me, and as I stepped back he plowed a fist into Kanye's stomach. Kanye doubled over. Ranger followed it by a foot to his knee, a punch to his nose – and that seemed to be the warm-up, because as he turned to walk away Kanye made the mistake of going on the offensive and trying to fight back. Kanye landed a punch to Ranger's back, and Ranger spun around and attacked. What followed was a fight so brutal and swift that I could barely keep track of the punches. As Kanye stopped fighting back, Ranger dropped him on the ground and looked around at Kanye's friends. "Does anyone else want to fight me?" They all backed away. "Please tell Kanye that this bitch, as he called her, is my bitch, and it will not go well for anyone who disrespects her or approaches her. Do you understand?" The youths all nodded. He looked at each one in turn in the eye, and as one they dropped their gazes. He turned to me. "Do you want to see if Romeo is there now?"

He captured my hand loosely in his and walked with me to Romeo's building. I could feel the tension in his hand and the anger simmering underneath as we climbed the steps to Romeo's room and knocked on the door. I got out my cuffs in preparation, and when Romeo opened the door, Ranger said "bond enforcement." He took the cuffs from my hand, snapped half on Romeo's wrist, and spun him around and snapped the second half in place.

"Fuck you", said Romeo.

He struggled against the restraints, and Ranger shook him slightly. "I don't agree with hitting a restrained man, but I'm a little angry tonight and I'd love to have a chance to hit you. So please, resist arrest."

Romeo must have heard the intent in Ranger's voice, and he stopped struggling. I picked up Romeo's keys and locked up his room, and together Ranger and I escorted Romeo from the building and down to the car.

Ranger shackled Romeo to the floor of the car and put his seatbelt on, and shut the door on him. He looked across at me. "You okay, babe?" he said.

I nodded. I was shaking and had been since Kanye had approached me. We got in the car and buckled up, and Ranger drove the car to the precinct. He asked me to wait in the car as he got Romeo out and walked him into the station. I think he'd heard my knees knocking together and wanted to give me a chance to regain my balance.

I tried to calm down as Ranger left and focused on my breathing. In, out. I'd heard somewhere that focusing on your breathing was supposed to calm you down. It didn't feel like it was working for me then, but maybe it worked like a sneak attack. It wouldn't be working and then, wham! You'd be calm. I breathed a little longer before giving up. I had a squishy feeling in my stomach and I didn't like it, and my body was shaking as I tried to tell myself that I was safe and that Ranger was safe. It had been a close call and, if it wasn't for Ranger's presence, it could have ended much worse.

My door was ripped open, and one of Kanye's friends was there. "Hey, bitch", he said. "You need to come with me."

"No."

"Wrong answer, bitch", he said. He reached out and stunned me, and everything went black.


	9. Chapter 9

I came to slowly in a dark, confined space, first aware of drool on my face and a wet pair of pants. I thought it was a trunk of a car based the fact that I was in transit, and that there was a tire iron digging into me. My captors hadn't restrained me however, and I thought I might be able to use that.

I felt a bit sick to my stomach, and I wasn't sure if it was the fact that the trunk liner smelled strongly of moldy cheese, the remnant side effects of the stun, or the fact that I had been kidnapped. Whatever the reason, my stomach felt squishy and I was having trouble breathing. I tried to push aside my panic, to breathe past it, and to concentrate on actions that I could do. With the terror coursing through my brain, it was challenging. My mind was screaming for Ranger, and I felt terrified that I wouldn't see him again. I wished that I had told him that I would move in with him. I wished that I had told him more frequently that I loved him. I wished that he was there. He would know what to do to get free of this asshole.

I thought it was good that I was getting angry. As Ranger said, one hundred and thirty pounds of angry female could do a lot.

I tried to focus, and I wondered how I would let Ranger know that I was there…and then I remembered my watch. About six weeks before, Ranger had bought me a watch. Unknown to the general public was the fact that there was a tracking device in the back of the watch, and there was a special panic button on it. I liked the watch because it was my style – not too casual but not too fancy. Besides, it was good for telling time. Ranger had asked me to never take it off, and I hadn't. Now, I was glad that he's been so adamant that I needed the protection. I fumbled around in the dark, and found the button for the emergency alarm. I hit the panic button and knew that the control room at Rangeman would track my movements.

I thought frantically, and felt around the trunk. I pulled the wires for the tail lights and hoped that the police would pull the kidnappers over. I knew that was a long shot, but as someone had once told me, sometimes the long shots are what results in arrests. Was it Morelli who had said that? I hoped he wouldn't be too upset to find out that I had been taken. He'd probably blame me for it though, so I'd be happy if he found out about it after the fact.

I wiggled around a bit more until I was able to grasp the tire iron. By that time, I was sweaty and frustrated, but with more wiggling I was able to pull the tire iron out from beneath me. I was glad that I had a weapon but I knew that, unless Ranger was able to locate me, the chances of me getting free were slim to none. I tried not to panic, but it was difficult. The air was hard to breathe, it was hot and close, and I couldn't think of a way to get free.

I reminded myself of what Ranger always said. Don't focus on what you can't do. Focus on what you can.

I wondered how long it had been since I had been abducted. I didn't know how long I was out, but I'd been awake and en route to wherever we were going for about ten minutes. For all I knew, they were taking me back to Stark Street.

I wondered if Kanye knew that I had been abducted, or whether this was an action that his followers had done to curry favor with him. Either way, I knew that I would end up at Kanye's home by the end of the night.

The car slowed down and stopped and I could hear rap music spilling out of whatever house we were parked next to. Doors banged as the group of gangbangers got out of the car, and I could hear the scruff of the youths' shoes as they walked around the car to the rear. I silently prepared myself to attack once the trunk lid was open. I wanted to take them by surprise, and to do so I had to be silent. I needed them to think that I was still stunned.

I quietly moved so that I had a good grip on the tire iron. My heart was in my throat and my muscles were tense, but as the trunk lid opened, I swung the tire iron and I hit two gangbangers in the face as I came out fighting. I clambered to my knees and swung the tire iron again. I hit two more youths, one in the shoulder and another on his arm. A fifth youth came at me with the stun gun held out in front of him, and I swung the tire iron again and knocked it out of his hand. Snot was streaming from my nose, and tears were watering out of my eyes. I don't know if the tears were because of terror, anger, or the smell of the carpet, but they blurred my vision as I swung wildly with the tire iron.

"That's a fucking crazy bitch", said one of the youths. "I don't know why Kanye wants her so much."

"She hit me", said another. "I think she broke my fucking shoulder."

"Good", I said. "I hope you have problems with it for the rest of your life."

"She's fucking insane. If Kanye wants her, he should come get her."

"No way. He can hardly walk", said the first youth. "He sent us to retrieve her. That's our job. He said he'd give us some snow if we were able to retrieve her. He said he just bought some today, and it's supposed to be pure."

"He didn't say what kind of condition she needed to be in."

The youth with the stun gun moved to my side while another youth moved to the other side. Even though I was focused on the three directions of threats, I could see Ranger roar up in his Cayenne and park on the street. Tank, Ranger's right-hand man whose name suggested his body type, and Hector, a man who used to terrify me because he had teardrop tattoos but I had since found out was a nice person, both roared up beside Ranger. I watched them out of the corner of my eye as I tried not to let the youths know that their lives had just drastically shortened. A millisecond later, Morelli drove up.

Unfortunately, I was concentrating so much on what was happening with my rescuers that I forgot to be cognizant of what the boy with the stun gun was doing, and as the gangbanger in front of me reached for me and as I brought the tire iron down and slammed him on his wrist, the youth with the stun gun tagged me from behind. I heard a sizzle and then everything went black.

I slowly became aware of Ranger calling my name and gently rubbing his thumb over my cheekbone. Rain was lightly falling and I was getting cold. All I wanted to do was to roll over and go back to sleep, but Ranger kept calling me. He wouldn't let me go to sleep, and I swatted his hand away as I growled. "Come on, babe. Open your eyes", he said.

I pried my eyes open and saw Tank lead the stunner away in cuffs. Hector also had youths in cuffs, and Morelli was putting the second of his arrests in the back of his car. All together, there were six youths who had been arrested.

Ranger looked relieved as he looked at me. "Do you need an ambulance?" he said.

"No", I said. "I need a hot shower. That stun gun made me wet my pants."

I moved to get up, and Ranger pushed me down again. "Just take a minute until all the neurons are firing in sequence, babe. I don't want you to get up too quickly and take a header."

"How did you find me?"

"Your watch", he said. "We were tracking you, but until you activated it we didn't know whether you were alive or dead. Do you know why the youths were abducting you?"

"They are from Kanye's group. From what I can tell, Kanye sent these gangbangers to retrieve me. I don't know if it is in retaliation for you beating him up or what, but he has decided to terrorize me."

"So Morelli should talk to Kanye. Did they say where he could be found?"

"I suspect that he is somewhere around here. From what they said, I think they were taking me to him." I looked down at the ground. "I'm sorry", I said. "They tagged me and there was nothing that I could do. I had the doors to the car locked, but they popped it open somehow."

"I know, babe. I saw the scrapes on the car from where the popped the lock. Morelli is having the tapes pulled from the parking lot as we speak. He's off duty right now. We got him in the middle of a Yankees game."

"He's mad at me, isn't he?"

"He's upset. I don't think mad is the right description, but he is upset. He cares about you, babe. Just like you care about him. Cut him some slack." He helped me sit up and, when I didn't look especially dizzy, he pulled me to my feet. He wrapped an arm around me for support, and we walked over to Morelli's car.

"What happened?" Joe asked.

"I was waiting for Ranger in the police parking lot, when my door was wrenched open and the youth in Tank's car, the one with the blackened teeth…" I looked around me. They all had blackened teeth. "The one with the green shirt on", I said with a shake of my head, "told me that I had to go with him. I refused. He tagged me. The next thing I knew I woke up in the trunk of the car. I pulled out the tail light wires and activated my panic alarm, and wiggled around until I was able to get the tire iron up. I then positioned myself so that I could attack them when they opened the trunk."

I stopped talking to gulp in some air. "Take your time, babe", said Ranger as he rubbed my back.

Morelli watched us, and he didn't look happy. He sighed. "What happened next?" he said.

"I waited until they opened the trunk. And when they did, I swung the tire iron and hit one of the youths in the shoulder and another in the face, and I kept on chopping away at them until I had made a bit of space so that I could get to my knees. I continued to hit them every time they got close until you came, and shortly after you came one of the youths, the one with the dirty shirt on…" I looked around us and saw that all the youths had shirts with various stains on them. "The shirt that has the graphic penis on it with the message 'suck my' written above it, stunned me and that's the last I remember until I woke up again on the ground."

"You think that Kanye is behind this?" said Morelli.

"There was an altercation with Kanye earlier, and I think he was trying to enact his revenge."

"What happened earlier?"

"It actually started this morning", said Ranger. "Steph was performing surveillance on Romeo Tilson's house and, while she was there, Kanye saw her through the window of her car. He approached her car and yanked her out of it."

Joe's face turned red and steam poured out of his ears. He was visibly trying not to raise his voice. "You're on Stark Street, and it isn't even the nicer part of Stark Street", said Morelli. "Why the hell weren't your doors locked?"

"Bucky shot out the lock on my door last week when he was trying to shoot his girlfriend", I said. "My lock hasn't worked since." I watched Morelli look down at this shoe and count to ten. I waited until he got himself under control, but I was glad to have Ranger's arm over my shoulder giving me support. I began to shake as I anticipated the real hit that was coming to Morelli.

When I saw that he was somewhat under control again, I said, "so he pulled me out of the car and told me that he thought I would make a good 'ho, and that he would give me drugs so that I wouldn't mind turning tricks for him."

I was right. Morelli did get angrier. He walked away from us and flapped his arms like wings for a moment as he muttered to himself. I waited for him to come back. "What happened next?" he said with clenched teeth as he came back to join us.

"I threw up on him, and he let me go as he tried to get away from my puke. When he let me go, I jumped in the car and drove back to the bonds office." Morelli smiled at that.

"Steph's car is now being fixed, and she'll be driving a Rangeman vehicle until hers gets back from the mechanic's", said Ranger.

Morelli nodded.

"So you had that altercation earlier today, and then they find you at the precinct? That doesn't seem right."

"That's because you are missing the middle piece. So I went back to the office after throwing up over Kanye, and Ranger sent my car to the mechanic's and took me home so that I could have a nap."

"Did you stay there?"

"I had to. I didn't have a car."

"It hasn't stopped you before."

I threw him a glare. "Ranger and I went for dinner to Mary Lou's."

Morelli looked at Ranger. "Poor you. I can almost be happy that Steph and I aren't seeing each other any longer if spending time with Lenny was on the books for the evening."

"He's not that bad", I said.

"Babe, you sacked him tonight, and I think I saw you kick him in the ribs when he was lying down and rolling around the ground in pain", said Ranger.

Morelli smiled. "You sacked him, cupcake? I would have liked to have seen that."

"Yeah, apparently she doesn't take kindly to someone when they make a pass at them", said Ranger with a grin.

"Good to know", said Morelli. He had a matching grin.

"Anyway", I said as I glared at the two of them, "after we went to Mary Lou's for dinner, we decided to try to get Romeo again. Ranger didn't want me to come back and get him with Lula. He didn't feel confident that Lula would be able to protect me adequately." I started to shake hard again, and Ranger rubbed my shoulder and took up the narrative.

"We had done surveillance for about half an hour when we spotted Romeo walking into his building. We got out of the car and moved to capture him, when Kanye saw us and thought Steph was coming back to take him up on his earlier offer. He crowded her out on the sidewalk and I encouraged him to move. He's a little banged up. I told him at the same time that Steph was under my protection and that he should leave her alone."

"We captured Romeo and took them to the precinct", I said, "but I was still a little upset by what had happened, so Ranger took our skip into the station while I waited in the car. And the rest you already know."

"So I should talk to Kanye?"

"Yes", said Ranger.

"Will he have the same sort of story that you told?"

"I'm sure he won't tell the part about wanting to drug me and make me into one of his girls. Lula said that he is known for kidnapping women, getting them addicted to drugs, and then getting them to work the streets for him."

"So an all-round stand-up kind of guy", said Morelli.

"It also sounds like you might want to check the identities of all his girls to see if they belong to any missing persons database", said Ranger.

"I'd like to arrest Kanye for assault and harassment for when you were yanked out of the car, and harassment for this evening when you were with Ranger and, while he is fighting those charges, I'd like to review his operation and shut it down. I'll need to get statements from you. Which place are you going back to this evening?"

"We'll be at Steph's place", said Ranger.

"Okay. I probably won't be able to get a statement until tomorrow morning. I'll call in some uniforms to remove the trash and take them to the precinct, and I'll find Kanye and arrest him. I'll probably be here or at the station all night long."

"Take it easy", said Ranger.

Morelli smoothed my curls away from my face and tucked my hair behind my ears. "Take care, cupcake", he said softly. He leaned down and gave me a soft kiss, looked at me sadly for a moment, sighed, then turned around and walked towards Tank and Hector.

Ranger led me to his car, opened the door, and I stared at the seat. "What's wrong, babe?" he said.

I looked at him, tears in my eyes. "Can I repeat that I was stunned? I don't want my piddle pants contaminating your leather interior."

Ranger's eyes turn soft with understanding, and he led me over to Tank's car. "Do you have an emergency blanket?" he said. "The one from my kit was used on the last skip that we captured."

Tank looked at me as he moved to the rear of his vehicle. "I'm glad to see that you're okay, Steph", he said.

Ranger told him what Morelli was doing for the rest of the evening. "Please provide as much support to Morelli as you can", he said. "Steph and I are going back to her apartment overnight."

Tank handed Ranger his emergency blanket, and turned to me. "If you need us, we'll be around."

I smiled my thanks and returned with Ranger to his car. He opened the plastic foil blanket up and wrapped it around me. I felt a little like a Costco hotdog as I slid into the seat and did up my seatbelt. I closed my eyes and started to cry on the way home.


	10. Chapter 10

Ranger and I returned to my apartment. My body was sore and bruised from collapsing on the ground after being stunned the second time, and I was still shaking with shock. All I wanted was a hot shower, a bag of brownies, and some time in my bed, in that order. Knowing Ranger, I would have to sneak the brownies. We got into the apartment and turned on the lights. The apartment seemed blessedly quiet, and I stepped into the hallway and sighed in relief to be home. "Come", said Ranger. He took my hand and tugged me into the bathroom. He gently undressed me and turned on the hot water in the shower. "I'll get you some clothes while you wash off", he said.

I whimpered as Ranger shut the door after me, and I let loose and sobbed as I stepped under the spray. Fifteen minutes later, I was cried out, which was a good thing since the hot water was getting cool. I quickly washed my face, body and hair, and turned off the water. Ranger opened the door as I pushed aside the shower curtain, and he took my towel off the rod and gently dried my skin.

He helped me into one of his t-shirts and a pair of clean panties – the comfortable kind – and led me out of the bathroom. "What do you want to do now?" he asked.

"Honestly? I'd like to go to bed and pretend this day never happened."

Ranger smiled. "Having you in my arms seems like a good idea to me as well." He tugged me into the bedroom and helped me down on the bed and, when I was settled, he finished in the bathroom and climbed into bed beside me. He turned out the light and cuddled in spoon-style.

"The fight between you and Kanye was brutal", I said quietly.

"Kanye was lucky that I didn't kill him", said Ranger. "I don't normally lose control like that. In fact, I don't think that I've ever lost control during an altercation before in my life or, at least, not since I was a kid. But when I saw him terrorizing you? Something in me just snapped."

"You pulled back before any permanent damage occurred."

"Thankfully", he said. "I didn't stop because of an awareness that I was hurting him. I didn't stop because of some belief that hitting him was wrong. I stopped because I knew it would upset you if I killed him. It would be what he'd deserve, but I thought you'd be upset anyway."

"That's true, I would. But I was still happy to see him get hurt. Does that make me a bad person?"

"No, babe. That makes you a normal person."

We were silent for a time, just appreciating the other's presence. Just as I was starting to relax, there was a loud banging on the door. I immediately tensed, and Ranger got up, grabbed his gun, and walked to the door. He looked out the peephole and sighed. "Babe? Mary Lou is here." He opened the door and Mary Lou walked in. Tear tracks were drying on her face as she pulled a suitcase behind her.

I hastily threw on a pair of yoga pants and walked through from the bedroom. "Mary Lou! What are you doing here?"

"I've had it with Lenny. I'm leaving him."

"But you have the life that you want. I thought that you were happy."

Ranger sighed. "I'll go to bed and let the two of you talk."

I smiled at Ranger, and he dropped his face down to kiss me, and he rubbed my shoulder at the same time. I watched him leave the room, happy that he slept only in his boxer briefs. It was concealing enough that we didn't have to be embarrassed by having Mary Lou see him, but revealing enough that I was able to appreciate his assets.

I turned to Mary Lou to see her appreciating his assets as well. I sighed. That was one of the problems of settling down with someone as hot as Ranger was. There was always someone appreciating his assets, whether it was Lula or Connie or even Vinnie at the office, or whether it was Mary Lou right now. Hell, even my grandmother appreciated his assets. Of course, she appreciated Harry Ernestine's assets as well, and he was about one hundred and eight years old, weighted about five hundred pounds and took up three seats on the pew at church.

"What's happening?" I asked Mary Lou.

"Lenny admitted to me tonight that he's been having an affair with Lizzie Lispen. How could he be having an affair on me? I've tried to do everything right. I got married after high school. I had the kids. I've stayed home. How could he be having an affair?"

"Lenny has been having affairs on you for as long as you've been married. Lizzie is just the last in a string of mistresses."

"Lenny is an overweight, crude asshole of a man. I don't want to be married to Lenny any longer. I want to be married to Ranger. I mean, Lenny made a pass at you tonight! I don't believe that Ranger would ever make a pass at someone if he was going out with you."

"I hope he wouldn't", I said. I trusted him. Mary Lou was right. He was a good man, and I didn't think that he'd cheat on me. And I didn't think that I'd cheat on him either. I couldn't ever imagine thinking that he wasn't enough, and unlike with Morelli, Ranger would make sure that I was so happy with him in all ways – physically and emotionally – that I wouldn't want to cheat on him either.

"Ranger is hot. Lenny isn't hot. Ranger is loyal. Lenny isn't loyal. Ranger is gentlemanly. Lenny isn't gentlemanly. Ranger is every girl's dream. Lenny is every girl's nightmare."

I had to agree with her, even though I wouldn't say it.

I opened a bottle of wine and poured glasses, and looked in dismay at the new pack of two-bite brownies that were in the freezer, sad that I would have to share. I had been planning on having them as a midnight snack when Ranger wasn't looking. I thought, after the day I had, that I deserved them. Then I thought about poor Mary Lou with her loser of a husband and decided she needed them more than me. I plated them and pulled out the can of whipped cream from the fridge. At least I would be able to justify eating several now that Mary Lou had given me an excuse. It would be for solidarity purposes.

I carried the snacks and wine through to the living room and put the tray on the coffee table. Mary Lou followed me in as I retrieved the box of tissues from the bathroom and put it beside the brownies. We had wine, chocolate, whipped cream and tissues. We were set for either a support session or an incredibly hot lovemaking session.

My eyes started to cross with the thought of whipped cream and chocolate and Ranger, and I was pulled rudely back to the conversation when Mary Lou said, "I mean, Lizzie Lispen? Lenny had been after me for years to keep my weight down. I've starved myself. I even ate celery for him, just because it had negative net calories. And I hate celery. Lizzie is a plump woman. If that's the type of woman that he likes, why have I been starving myself all these years?"

I didn't have the answer to that. I know that I wouldn't have starved myself for Lenny.

Mary Lou grabbed a brownie, sprayed on two inches of whipped cream, and shoved the brownie into her mouth. Apparently she also didn't think they deserved the name 'two-bite brownies' either. Like me, she thought they should be named 'one-bite brownies'.

"I even did that butt thing for him", she said, her mouth stuffed with brownies. "How could he cheat on me after I did the butt thing?"

Euww. Too much information. I didn't want to think about Mary Lou and Lenny doing anything, let alone the butt thing. I had the mental image of Lenny with his pants off, and I envisioned him with a hairy butt. I hated it when they had hairy butts. I'd seen a few butts when I had been skip chasing, and the people with hairy butts always grossed me out. I mean, do you grab a handful of hair when you're having sex with them?

I pushed the tissues towards her, and she took one and wiped her face. "So I was thinking that I'd start skip chasing and live with you for a while. My life is boring. Your life isn't boring. Think about it. We could be like Charlie's Angels."

Say what? I looked at her in shock and mentally reviewed the people that I was currently chasing. Having Mary Lou in on a few captures with Lula and me would make us more like the Three Stooges than Charlie's Angels, which sucked since I had always wanted to be like Jaclyn Smith. I tried to envision how we could ever be successful and came up empty.

"I have a partner already", I said.

"Lula? I've seen her around. I don't mind sharing a partnership with her. Come on, Steph, let me do it. It will be fun."

I blew out a breath. Mary Lou and I had been friends for twenty-five years. And friendships like that supported each other. As much as I thought it was a bad idea, it looked like I had another partner.

"We start first thing on Monday", I said. "Tomorrow, Ranger and I are transferring to his apartment. I'll be living there for the week. You can stay in my apartment."

"You don't mind?"

"No. Treat it as a crash pad. I don't mind at all."

"Fucking A. I can say that now that the kids aren't here. Fucking A. Fucking A. Fucking A." With each 'fucking' her voice was getting louder and, as she finished her wine and poured herself another glass, I could see her gaze becoming increasingly unfocused. I wondered how much she'd had to drink before she had arrived at my apartment.

"How did you get here?" I asked.

"I drove", said Mary Lou.

"Are you sure that you were safe to drive?"

"Absolutely. You know that I can handle my alcohol."

"We'll start skip chasing on Monday", I said. "Don't have anything to drink tomorrow. I need you perfectly cognizant and on your toes on Monday, and if you've been drinking the day before you will be a danger to Lula and me."

"Aye, aye, captain", said Mary Lou. She gave a little wiggle of happiness in her seat. "This will be fun."

I had the sneaking suspicion that it would be a lot of things, but fun it wouldn't be.

I topped up her wine glass and retrieved a set of sheets and a spare pillow. I made up the bed. "We'll talk more in the morning", I said, and I took my wine glass and put it in the kitchen. As Mary Lou stuffed the last brownie in her mouth, she looked disappointed to not see any more. I could understand her dismay. I left her as she was spraying the whipped cream directly into her mouth.

I walked into the bedroom and shut my door. I climbed into bed, and Ranger rolled over and pulled me into a spoons position. "Everything okay, babe?" he said quietly.

"Not really", I said. "Mary Lou has talked me into letting her chase skips with me on Monday. I give her one day before she is begging to go back to Lenny again." I could feel Ranger smile as he kissed me on my shoulder. "I told her that we were moving back to your apartment tomorrow, and that she could stay in my place. I hope that was okay."

"That's fantastic", he said. "So we'll move Rex over tomorrow morning?"

"Yes."

"I think Rex is starting to think of my place as being home for him."

"You do?" I smiled, but I had to agree with Rex. I was starting to think of Ranger's place as being home as well, and that scared me a bit. We hadn't had any serious conversations about our future. Yes, I knew that Ranger wanted me to live with him, but did he see our relationship as one that would last?

I sighed. I didn't know the answer to that, and I knew that I wouldn't figure out the answer in the next five minutes, and that was how long I had before I fell on my face asleep. Stick a fork in me, I was done. Ranger pulled me tighter to him, rested his hand on my breast and sighed. Seconds later, I was asleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Ranger slept in and got up at seven the next morning, changed into his workout clothes and crept into the bathroom. When he finished getting ready for the day, he tiptoed back into the bedroom and whispered to me that he was going out for a run for an hour or two. I barely remembered telling him goodbye before I fell back to sleep again. I woke up to the sounds of him showering two hours later. Mary Lou was still asleep, and I crept into the kitchen to make some coffee. When Ranger got out of the shower, I poured him a cup and followed him into the bedroom to watch him get dressed.

"I have already dedicated a car for you to use."

"Thanks."

"What are you planning on doing with Mary Lou?"

"I'll give her today to recover from last night, and I guess I will have two partners when I go skip chasing this week."

"Do you think she'll be any good at it?"

"I don't know. She can't run and she can't fight. I don't think she's ever held a gun and the only wrestling she's done has been with Lenny when he gets amorous. So, she is about as qualified to be a bounty hunter as I am."

"Don't sell yourself short, babe. You're a good bounty hunter."

"I can get the easy ones. I wouldn't have been able to cope if I'd had to pick up Romeo by myself last night. I would have been in a lot of trouble. Thank you, once again, for being there."

"No problem", said Ranger. "If Vinnie bonds Romeo out again, I'd like to be in on that capture as well. I don't particularly want you walking in that neighborhood with just Lula as backup. Kanye could approach you again at any time."

"Way to make me nervous."

"I'm not trying to make you nervous. I'm trying to make you cautious. You need to be on your toes out there, and Kanye is bad news."

I swallowed hard.

Ranger finished his cup of coffee as there was a knock on the door, and he pulled his gun as he walked to the door and peeked out the peephole. He holstered his gun again and opened the door. Morelli walked in. "Hey", he said to Ranger.

Ranger smiled, and Morelli turned to me and gave me a kiss on the lips.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" I said to Joe.

"Some. I got in at three this morning."

"Do you want coffee?"

"Is the Pope Catholic?"

"I certainly hope so. My mother would be exceedingly disappointed if he wasn't. The whole foundation of everything she believed in would be brought into question."

Morelli laughed.

Ranger went back into the bedroom, and Morelli looked at me. "This is cozy", he said. "You and Ranger. Has he been to your parents for dinner yet?"

I sighed. I had been able to avoid taking him so far. Ranger had told me that he didn't mind going and would feel comfortable going any time, but I personally thought it was a lot to ask. My mother would ask him when he was marrying me and when he would be giving me babies, my grandmother would be asking me how he was in bed, my father would lament Ranger's choice to drive a foreign import, and my sister Valerie would ignore him in favor of the gravy boat. She was pregnant again, and gravy seemed to have magical properties when she was pregnant. She couldn't get enough of it. Judging by the size of her, she couldn't get enough of anything else either. I personally thought she looked more like she was having a baby elephant rather than a baby boy. All in all, going to my parents' didn't scream a good time out in my books.

I shook my head, and Morelli smiled. "You took him to Mary Lou's for dinner yet you haven't taken him home yet? That was a comfort-limiting move, cupcake. Your mother might even cut you off dessert for that one. No pineapple upside-down cake for you."

I sighed again. He was right. It was time to take Ranger home. I really didn't want to go without pineapple upside-down cake.

I poured him a coffee and fixed it the way he liked it, and topped up my own cup. "I'd ask you to sit on the sofa, but Mary Lou is sleeping there."

"Why is she here?" asked Morelli in surprise.

"She left Lenny last night. Something about her getting tired of him always having affairs on her."

"He's been having affairs on her since before they were married."

"That's what I told her."

"What changed for her? After all, she's been married to him for almost ten years. Why the sudden desire to be free of him?"

"I don't know, and she was too wasted last night to ask."

"How did she get here?"

"She drove and luckily didn't cause an accident. She wants to get a job skip chasing with Lula and me."

"Does Lula know this?"

"Not yet. I'll have to warn her before tomorrow."

"You already look like Lucy and Ethyl. Adding another bumbler to the group won't increase your professionalism."

"I know", I said. I didn't know what it was about Morelli, but whenever I spoke to him about my job I got my back up. He could make me ashamed of my ineptitude faster than anyone else that I had ever met.

Ranger came out with his gym bag of clothes, ready to take back to Rangeman for Ella to wash. He turned to Morelli. "What's happening on the case from last night?"

"I found Kanye. He wanted to put a formal complaint in about the fight that you had with him, but since he didn't start talking about that until after I brought up the conversation about Steph, I was able to bury your involvement as much as I could. He has been arrested for sexual assault and harassment for the way that Steph was treated, and I am running the names and faces of all his girls. I have found one already that is a missing person report that had been done three years ago. All his girls have been admitted to the hospital for support while they detox. This case has the potential to be huge. If all his girls were kidnapped, that will mean that we'll be able to clean up fifteen missing persons files. He will be going in front of a judge tomorrow for his bail hearing. I'll recommend that he isn't awarded bail."

I knew the chances of that happening were slight. The jails were too full to hold everyone waiting for their trial in addition to the people who had been sentenced. Judges were pressured to award bail to as many people as they could to reduce the impact on the jails, and in many cases where bail was awarded I agreed with the judge. For personal reasons, I didn't want Kanye to be one of them. For some reason, I felt nervous around him and that feeling wouldn't go away.

Morelli finished up his coffee and, as I prepared another cup for him, he pulled out a witness statement form and took Ranger's formal statement. "So you didn't hit him?" he said to Ranger after he listened to Ranger's account.

"I did punch him in the stomach and then in the nose", said Ranger, "at which point he fell and twisted his knee. I walked away. When he got up and attacked me, it was self-defense and I neutralized the threat."

"That's the story you're going with?" said Morelli.

Ranger's lips quirked up in a half-smile. "Absolutely."

Morelli chuckled. "Okay, then. I'll file my report." He took my statement, and turned to the both of us. "I'm keeping him behind bars until we have run all his girls through the system, but as I said he'll likely be awarded bail. We'll get him, cupcake, but you need to be careful."

Mary Lou yawned and stretched with a loud moan, and got to her feet to pad through to the kitchen. "How are you feeling?" I said.

"Hung over", said Mary Lou. "It was nice though. I didn't have the children yelling and screaming at six this morning to wake me up. I haven't slept this late in years. Do you have any ibuprofen?" she said.

I rummaged around in the cupboard and handed her a bottle, and she gratefully took two. She looked at the coffeepot and the bottle of ibuprofen, grimaced, and took two more. I put the bottle on the counter for her to take some later. I suspected her headache was multi-dose in size.

As Mary Lou poured herself a coffee and took a sip, she looked at Morelli. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"I was just taking Steph's statement for her kidnapping last night."

"Steph was kidnapped last night? She was here when I was here." She turned to Ranger. "How could you let her get kidnapped?"

Ranger paled as I said, "it wasn't Ranger's fault. He was taking a skip into the precinct and some other gangbangers that I had run into earlier in the day kidnapped me out of Ranger's car. He came out of the station and found me gone."

Mary Lou turned to Morelli. "How could you let that happen?"

Morelli paled. "It wasn't his fault", I said. "He was at home watching a Yankees game."

"Hunh", said Mary Lou. She turned to me. "What happened?"

"It's as I said. Earlier in the day I ran into a pimp who was determined to make me into a 'ho." I told her what had happened. She turned even whiter and, as I finished telling my story, she ran into the washroom and threw up her coffee. She came out again, her body shaking, and grabbed the ibuprofen bottle to take two more.

"Feel better?" I said.

Mary Lou groaned.

"Do you still want to go skip chasing with me?"

Mary Lou was still for a moment. "I'm not going to let a simple kidnapping scare me", she said. "If I can handle washing Lenny's tighty whities, I can handle anything."

"Washing his underwear is challenging?" Morelli said.

"Yeah, there's a reason I call him the shit whisperer", said Mary Lou.


	12. Chapter 12

Morelli left soon after Mary Lou got up, and Ranger and I left soon after Morelli. Ranger carried Rex out to the car while I said goodbye to Mary Lou, and I reminded her that I would be picking her up at eight the next morning. I knew that Mary Lou was perpetually late for everything just as much as Lula was, and I thought by giving her that eight o'clock meeting time it would ensure that she was ready by nine.

I got in the car and seconds after Ranger had pointed the car towards home, I got a call from my mother. "Stephanie, it's your mother", she said.

"I can see that. My phone tells me who is on the line."

"I heard from Dianne Pembrick who heard from Nancy Wollenbury who heard from Mary Lou's neighbor that you were visiting Mary Lou last night with a strange man."

"It wasn't a strange man, Mom. Ranger and I went for dinner at Mary Lou's house."

"Are you seeing Ranger now?"

"Yes, I am."

"So I should stop looking for men for you?"

"That would probably be wise."

"Why are you going to dinner at Mary Lou's house, when you haven't come to dinner at ours?"

"Ranger has been to dinner at our place several times, Mom."

"But he hasn't been to dinner at our place since you started dating. Why don't you come for dinner tonight?"

I cocked my eyebrow in question at Ranger, and he shrugged his shoulders and nodded. "That would be good, thanks, Mom."

I could hear my mother breathe a sigh of relief. "Does he like stuffed cabbage rolls?" she said.

I shuddered. I loved almost everything my mother made. If she was serving lasagna, pork roast, veal, meatballs, almost anything, I would be the first person to arrive at the table. Stuffed cabbage rolls, not so much. The cabbage always seemed slimy to me.

Ranger smiled at the look of distaste on my face. "I don't think they're his favorite", I said.

My mother paused. "Joseph didn't like them much either", she said finally.

"Isn't that a coincidence?" I said.

"I'll make him a lasagna then", said my mother. "And perhaps a salad to go with it, and a loaf of fresh bread from the bakery."

"I think he'll greatly enjoy your lasagna", I said. "Just to warn you, he doesn't eat dessert."

"He doesn't eat dessert?!"

"At most, he eats fruit for dessert."

"Then I'll make banana cream pie for dessert. It has fruit in it."

I smiled. I remembered Ranger once telling me that I should have a minimum of six helpings of fruits and vegetables in a day, and I had asked him whether that meant that I could have six helpings of banana cream pie. After all, it had bananas in it. He hadn't thought much about that theory.

"I'll call Val and see if her family can come for dinner as well", said my mother.

I groaned. I had been worried about bringing Ranger home to my family before when I thought it was just going to be my parents and my grandmother. If Val was there as well, my mother would have the constant reminder of her grandkids to prompt her into harassing me about having children. It would be a toss-up as to which dinner was the dinner from hell on the weekend – the one with Mary Lou and Lenny, or the one with my family.

I got off the phone and looked at Ranger. "In advance, I just want to apologize for my family."

"Is there anything in particular you are apologizing for?"

I considered that for a moment. "Nope, it's more of a blanket apology."


	13. Chapter 13

My parents' house was a pale yellow half of a duplex. It used to be brown and mustard yellow, but about four months ago a skip of mine got angry and started to vandalize all the buildings I stayed in. After vandalizing my apartment, I moved to staying with my parents. He vandalized my parents' house as well. The graffiti that the skip painted on the house was graphic and succinct, and it made me feel icky that the vandal had been able to disturb the sanctity of my parents' house. While my grandmother was impressed by the artistry of the graffiti and moved to keep it on the house for posterity, my mother used the graffiti as an excuse to get rid of the bi-colored siding and go with a pale yellow, thereby choosing a color that was suitable to coordinate with the red door that she had always wanted. The new color looked a lot better beside the lime green paint on the house next door, a color choice which was the result of an unfortunate foray by our neighbor into the clearance section at the paint store.

My parents' place was a standard duplex and had the floor plan of most houses in the neighborhood – living room, dining room and kitchen lined up like soldiers on the main floor, and three small bedrooms and a single bathroom on the upper. The basement was unfinished and was the location of the washer and dryer and a number of boxes containing the detritus of our lives. The house may not have been fancy, but it was the only childhood home that I had ever known and was special to me. There was something reassuring about returning to the womb, and as much as I wasn't looking forward to my mother's comments about grandkids, I was looking forward to seeing my family and spending time with them.

Grandma was waiting at the door when Ranger and I drove up to the house. Grandma Mazur was my maternal grandmother, and had moved in several years ago when my grandfather had gone to drink in the eternal social club in the sky. She was seventy but looked like ninety in body and acted like seventeen in spirit. A number of things happened after my grandmother moved in. My father, when he retired from the post office, had to make the decision to either kill my grandmother in her sleep or do something to get himself out of the house and away from her. Since killing my grandmother would upset my mother, he chose driving a cab, much to my mother's relief. Even so, she quietly got rid of my father's gun and hid the mouse poison, just in case. On my mother's side, she had developed gray hair, something that neither my sister nor I had been to accomplish. My grandmother had an unusual zest for life that I personally found refreshing. But then, I didn't have to live with her.

We parked in the street and saw that Valerie and Albert and their four girls were already there. As we walked up to the house, Grandma stepped out on the stoop. "Thank God you're here", she said. "The kids are driving me nuts. They are all running around playing hide and seek and it's bedlam in there. They have no respect for old ladies and our need for peace."

"Did they catch you when you hid?"

My grandmother looked incensed. "I was caught just seconds after we all hid, all because I had a little toot when Mary Alice was doing the searching. I remember when the kids were little. It was much easier to fool them. They believed me when I told them it was a duck quacking. They used to run around looking for the duck."

Mary Alice came out. "It was an enormous fart, Aunt Stephanie. You should have heard it."

Grandma turned red. "No, it wasn't. It was a ladylike little toot, and it isn't nice to talk about people's farts."

"You were talking about them."

"I was not. I was talking about ducks quacking", said my grandmother.

I laughed and held the door open for Ranger. We all filed in, and my father looked up from the television. It was the most acknowledgment I had ever seen my father give one of my dates. He smiled and grunted 'hi' before sliding his attention back to the ball game on the TV. To have so much interaction from my father meant that he was happy that I was dating Ranger. Ownership of foreign cars aside, my father had accepted him. I had never got the same sort of encouragement from my father about any of my previous dates, including Morelli.

I kissed my father on the top of his head, and he patted my back awkwardly as he tried to peer around me to see the television. I moved out of his line of sight and said, "is everyone else in the kitchen?"

My father grunted yes, and I led my grandmother and Ranger back through the house. My mother had already set the table, and the kids were running around underfoot hooting and hollering. Apparently they had discarded the game of hide and seek and had switched to playing tag.

"Isn't this nice to have the family all together?" said my mother. Her gaze was slightly unfocused as she watched the kids run past a plant stand, and she smiled in thanks as Ranger caught the plant teetering on the stand and returned it to safety. She took a chug of her hundred-proof 'ginger ale'. "Would you like some nibblies while we finish getting dinner ready?" she said.

She moved to pass us the antipasto tray as we all turned our attention to Valerie. Val was happily stuffing the last item from the antipasto tray into her mouth, and she looked at us guiltily. As she finished chewing and swallowing, she said, "what? I'm eating for two."

"Stephanie didn't tell me that you were having twins. Congratulations!" said Ranger.

Valerie looked like she was going to cry. "I'm not having twins. I don't look like I'm having twins, do I?"

Ranger looked at her and perfectly seriously said that no, she didn't look like she was having twins. I agreed with him. Privately I thought she looked like she was expecting quintuplets.

Albert walked into the house from the backyard. I liked Albert. He was slightly short, slightly pudgy, slightly befuddled, and he reminded me in many ways of Elmer Fudd. Whenever I interacted with Albert, I expected him to tell me that he was going huntin' because it was wabbit season. Valerie said that he reminded her of a big teddy bear, and I could see her point. He wouldn't be the kind of person that would attract me, but Valerie seemed happy.

My mother liked Albert because he was a lawyer, and she closed her eyes to the fact that he was particularly inept. He was too kind to have the cutthroat edge needed to be successful. Valerie was his legal secretary, and together they barely brought in enough money to cover their family expenses – expenses that kept going up with every child they had. They had talked about Albert getting the snip, but they had decided that it cost too much money to do so. Personally, I thought it would be cheaper for Albert to get the snip than it would be for them to have more children. After all, after this baby was born they would now have five kids and were living in a three-bedroom rental. Any more kids and they'd need to purchase a small school bus to get around.

Ranger said hello to Albert. "Congratulations on the baby", he said.

Albert smiled at him. "We're really excited. We're having boy. We don't have a boy yet. We have three girls and a horse." Mary Alice for years had told everyone that she was a horse. When she got angry, she would paw the ground with her feet, and when she was excited she would flick her hair in the air like a mane. "Not a real horse, of course, but Mary Alice is as close to a horse as you can imagine. She's the best horse in the world. I would want to ride her if she was a horse." Valerie glared at him. Albert turned red. "I didn't mean that the way that it sounded. I wouldn't want to ride her, ride her. I meant that I'd want to ride her if she was a horse." Then, like a top that had worn down, he spluttered to a quiet state.

Ranger and I stared at Albert as he looked frantically around the room and turned red, and I shook my head. Ranger looked at my mom. "When's dinner?" he said. "It smells amazing."

My mother gratefully pounced on the topic. "We're having lasagna. Stephanie said that you don't like cabbage rolls, but she said you'd like my lasagna."

"I do love lasagna", said Ranger. He looked at me like he was thinking about smiling, and I could tell that he knew that I didn't like cabbage rolls.

"I love your cabbage rolls", said Albert. "There is nothing I like better than your cabbage rolls. I often say to Valerie that your cabbage rolls are the best cabbage rolls in the whole world. I never liked cabbage rolls until I had your cabbage rolls, and now I look forward to eating your cabbage rolls. When Valerie says that we're coming here for dinner I always hope that we're having cabbage rolls."

"Do you like lasagna as well?" said Ranger.

"I love lasagna. Mom makes the best lasagna in the whole world." He looked at his wife, and Valerie was glaring at him. "It's not as good as Valerie's lasagna, of course, but it's a very good lasagna. I am always happy when I find out that we're having lasagna. And Angie told me that we're having banana cream pie for dessert. I love banana cream pie. I always think that it's an excellent way to get your fruit quotient for the day. I wish that I could get all my fruits and vegetables through pie. I wonder what an asparagus pie would taste like?"

"Probably better than an eggplant pie", said Ranger.

Everyone stood around awkwardly for a few seconds, and you could see the relief on my mother's face as the oven buzzed to let us know that the lasagna was ready. "Thank God", said Valerie. "I'm starving."

With the sound of the timer buzzing on the oven, everyone burst into action. My mother removed the lasagna from the oven and put it on a trivet in the center of the dining room table. My grandmother stirred the extra red sauce on the stovetop and ladled it into a gravy boat. My sister lumbered to her feet, herded the kids upstairs and into the bathroom to wash their hands. Albert floated out to the living room to tell my father that it was dinner time. I removed the salad bowl from the fridge and handed it to Ranger to put on the dining table and, when he came back, I handed him a half dozen dressings for people to choose from. While he put those on the table as well, I got out the bread board and a bread knife, and I cut the warmed bread into slices to put in the bread basket. Ranger put the bread basket on the table.

By the time we were finished getting the dinner to the table, my father was sitting, white-knuckled as he held his fork and knife in front of him. Albert had evidently taken lessons from my father, as he also was sitting with his knife and fork already in his hands. My mother led the table in grace and, that done, she dished up the first slab of lasagna to my father. After he was served, she went around the table and gave us each some dinner. My grandmother took some salad and passed it around, and I started by taking a piece of bread from the basket before passing the basket on. By the time everybody had been served, my father was starting to drool from the smell of the food.

As my mother finished dishing up the food, she looked around the table. "Dig in", she said, and it was like a starting gun went off. Forks and knives flew as people concentrated on moving the food as rapidly as we could from the plate to our mouths, and conversation was non-existent as everyone focused on the task in front of them. Five minutes later, plates were being scraped clean and glasses were being drained. "Would anyone like more?" asked my mother. I looked down at Ranger's plate. He was only half finished his meal, and I shook my head. He had a lot to learn about eating with my family.

"What do you put in your lasagna to make it taste so good?" said Ranger to my mother.

My mother glowed. "Do you know how to cook?" she said.

"I do, actually. My parents own a restaurant, so I grew up working in the kitchen. I don't do a lot of it now, but I do know how to cook and can make a decent meal in a pinch."

"Stephanie doesn't know how to cook", said my mother. "I tried to teach her several times, but she's useless in the kitchen."

"Stephanie does alright, and she doesn't need to cook at my house. I have a housekeeper who cooks all our meals for us."

"You own a successful business, don't you?" said my father.

"Yes, I do. We have two offices – our head office here in Trenton and a satellite office in Miami. We are the premier security company in both cities."

"What do you do?" asked Albert. "I remember that you saved me when I was in that madman's factory." In a creepy life and death game of tag that a felon set up, I was the prey and the felon was the hunter. To upset me, the felon took me to his factory. He had already taken Albert there and had outfitted him with a bomb vest, and he'd taken Lula there and hung her upside down from the ceiling. The upshot was that I fatally shot the felon and Ranger saved me and Albert and Lula. While kidnapping Albert and Lula was a new twist, it wasn't the first time that Ranger saved me from scary circumstances.

"My company provides a wide range of security services, whether that is skip chasing or bodyguard services or the design, installation and monitoring of security systems. We do almost anything that is related to protection. We have grown very fast over a short period of time."

"So you're successful?" said my father.

"I like to think so", said Ranger.

"What kind of car do you drive?" said my father.

"I have three cars and drive them according to the functionality that I need for the day. I have a Porsche Turbo 911, a Porsche Cayenne, and a Toyota Tacoma truck. I take the truck when I need to go off-roading; I take the Cayenne when I am picking up skips; and, I take the Turbo when I am just driving around to get to places and know that I don't need to take more than one other person with me."

"Foreign cars", said my father with disgust. "They aren't worth the money. You can't beat a good old American car."

"I particularly like the old muscle cars", said Ranger. "One day, I'd like a '66 Mustang Fastback. That's a sweet car."

I could see that Ranger had restored his reputation with my father as my dad brightened. "That's a good car", he said. "They don't make them like that any longer."

"Most of my fleet cars are domestic. For the money, they are reliable and they have great leasing rates. In fact, Stephanie will be driving an Explorer for the next few days."

My mother crossed herself as my grandmother sat forward on her chair and looked at me, her eyes sharpened and her nose quivering in interest. She looked like Rex did when I gave him a raisin in his food bowl – a little like he couldn't believe the bounty that had been given to him. "What happened this time?" she said. "Did you get firebombed?"

"No", I said.

"Was it shot full of bullet holes?"

"No", I said.

"Were you in a major accident and the front is all crumpled up like an accordion?"

"No."

"Did you knock a Slayer gang member over the bumper?"

"No."

"Damn. What happened then?"

"When Bucky was trying to shoot his now ex-wife the other day, he proved that he's just as bad a shot as I am because he missed his wife and hit my car square in the driver's side door lock instead. I was in the convenience store at the time. Ranger is getting my car repaired so that the lock is usable again."

"Thank God", said my mother as she crossed herself.

"Well, that's real disappointing", said my grandmother. "That won't make a very good story to tell at the Cut 'n Curl the next time I'm there. I'll have to come up with something better than that."

"Grandma, don't make stories up about me. People still won't talk to me after you told them that I was a killer and that I would kill them in their sleep if they didn't do whatever it was that you wanted them to do."

"People get so uptight about things", said Grandma. "You know, I was reading that gangbangers will tattoo teardrops under their eyes. The number of teardrops correspond to the number of kills the person has made."

"That's true", I said.

"I was just thinking, Steph, that you should tattoo on some teardrops under your eye", said my grandmother. I froze in horror. The fact that I had killed three people wasn't something I was proud of. My grandmother, however, reveled in the knowledge and liked to tell everybody with a bloodthirsty relish. "You've killed three people, so you could tattoo on three teardrops. Wouldn't that make a pip of a story?"

"I'm not tattooing teardrops under my eyes", I said. My mother crossed herself once, thought about it, then crossed herself again for good measure just to be sure that God heard her prayers.

"I can't say that at the hair salon. I need something better than that, dear. I'll just tell everyone that you're thinking of it."

"No, Grandma. Do not tell everyone that I'm thinking of getting any tattoo, under my eye or anywhere else on my body." I heard my father mumble something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like 'crazy old hag'.

"I wish I had killed all those people. I would like to get tattoos under my eye. Just think what I could do to Grandma Bella if she saw me with the teardrop tattoos. I could give her the eye before she gave it to me. I would like to curse her. In fact, I frequently do, but my curses aren't as strong as hers or something because my curses don't seem to work like hers."

"I'm glad", I said. "Can you imagine what would happen if your curses worked as effectively as Grandma Bella's? Every family in Trenton that decided to have their funeral with the casket closed would be cursed for the rest of their lives." My grandmother was a professional mourner who went to the funeral home at least twice a week to view the dead. She didn't even have to know the deceased. She told my mother that she went for the gossip and the cookies, but I secretly thought it was to satisfy her macabre interest in dead bodies.

"People should have an open casket. If I go to all the trouble to attend their funeral, the least the family could do is to keep the casket open."

"Often, you don't even know the family. Perhaps the family would prefer not to see the body up close and personal like that after the person has died."

"That hardly seems fair", said Grandma. "Inquiring minds always want to know what the person looks like dead." She turned to Ranger. "Don't you always like to see the body? How do you know that the person really has died unless you see the body? It could be an insurance scam otherwise. Really, I'm providing a public service to make sure that the relatives of the deceased aren't committing fraud. Isn't that a good thing for me to do? Isn't that a valuable public service for me to provide?"

Ranger smiled and ate the last bite of his lasagna.

My mother looked around the table, gathered the plates, and carried the dirty plates into the kitchen. I brought in the remainder of the lasagna, Grandma brought in the salad, Ranger brought in the dressings, and Valerie struggled to her feet so that she could bring in the bread basket and the butter. By the time she had made it to her feet, however, Ranger had also brought in the bread and the butter, and my mother was coming back from the kitchen with the small plates, the banana cream pie, the lifter and a knife. Valerie groaned with relief and plopped herself down again.

My mother passed slices of pie around, and like the lasagna and salad and bread, the dessert was inhaled. Ranger ate half of his pie and pushed the remainder away. I pulled it in front of me and finished his dessert. As I just about licked the plate clean, he smiled at me. "Thank you", he said under his breath.

I grinned. Any time I got double dessert and was considered to be doing Ranger a favor was a good deal for me.

My mother pushed to her feet and gathered the dirty plates. She carried them through as Valerie tried to get to her feet. She was stuck, however, and she started to cry when she couldn't raise herself. Albert put his hands under her arms and pulled upwards, but instead of pulling her up he off-balanced and toppled over onto Valerie. He somehow caught the tablecloth as he fell on her. The momentum of Albert falling on Valerie caused Valerie to topple over onto the floor, Albert to fall on top of Valerie, and the tablecloth to pull to the floor after them. Glasses and dirty cutlery went everywhere.

"I didn't do it", said my grandmother. My mother looked at the devastation and sighed.

"I'm so sorry", said Albert as his face turned red. "I don't know what happened. I just about had Valerie to her feet."

I could just hear my father say what sounded suspiciously like "fucking idiot" under his breath.

My mother retrieved the broom and swept up the broken glass as Valerie continued to cry. "I'm just a big fat whale", she said. "I'm seven months pregnant and I look like a whale." Tears streaked down her cheeks and she caught her breath in great gulping sobs.

Now me, if I'd been crying, I would have ended up with swollen eyes and blotchy skin and snot streaming from my nose, and Ranger had seen me cry enough to know that I was not an attractive crier. Valerie was different. She was a dainty crier. She never ended up with swollen eyes or a stuffy nose. Her skin didn't go blotchy. If it weren't for the actual tears, you wouldn't even know that she had been crying. Today was no different. Valerie was opening sobbing, and somehow she could make sobbing look feminine and sexy. I shook my head in disbelief.

When my mother had finished sweeping up all the glass, Ranger and I went to the other side of the table and looked down at the two people on the floor. Ranger helped Albert to his feet. "Thank you", said Albert. "I don't know what happened. I was just about pulling Val up. I have a lot of experience pulling her up. I do it all the time. I don't know what happened this time. I don't understand why it didn't work." He turned to Valerie. "Did you gain weight? Is that why I couldn't lift you?"

Valerie cried louder. "I'm a beached whale and I can't get up", she said. "I'll have to have the baby on the floor because I can't get up."

Ranger and I each took a side, put our arms under Valerie's armpits, and Ranger said, "on the count of three." He counted off, and we hoisted Valerie to her feet.

Valerie stopped crying. Grandma passed Valerie a box of tissues, and my sister blew her nose and dried her eyes.

"What can I do to help?" asked Albert. "I want to be able to do something. What can I do?"

"You can take Valerie and the girls home", I said. "Valerie looks tired and as though she needs a quiet place to rest, and the girls have school tomorrow. They still need to have their baths and to brush their teeth."

"Of course, I should take them home. Valerie would prefer to be at home. That makes sense."

I turned to Valerie and gave her a hug. "I should help Mom clean up the kitchen", she said.

"Go. I've got this", I said with a smile. "You need to look after your girls." We looked over at Mary Alice and Angie, who were sitting forward on their chairs waiting for the next catastrophe to happen. The baby was squirming in the high chair, and she had broken off a piece of her teething biscuit and looked like she was trying to insert it up her nose. Little Lisa was starting to cry and had her arms up in a plea to be taken out of her booster chair.

Ranger wiped Lisa's face and hands with a napkin and lifted her from the seat. Albert herded the rest of his flock to the door in an overzealous manner, and Mom's eyes began to gleam as she saw how comfortable Ranger appeared with Lisa. I groaned inwardly as Ranger walked out to the minivan with Lisa in his arms and passed her to Albert to put in her car seat. The kids all settled, Albert helped Val line her body up with the passenger seat so that she could drop her bulk in, and he ran around the minivan to get in and drive away. My mother, grandmother, Ranger and I all waved goodbye to Val's family as Albert tooted his horn once and pulled away from the curb. My father didn't join the group. He had already returned to watching the television.


	14. Chapter 14

I apologized for the disaster of the evening again as we drove away from the house. "My mother now thinks of you as the perfect father material."

Ranger smiled. "I've walked that line before, babe. I wasn't good at it the first time around, and I don't think I'd be any better at it now. If you happened to get pregnant despite our best efforts, then we'll deal with it at the time. However, that isn't somewhere I'd purposely want to go."

"Thank God", I said. "Every time I spend an evening with Val's kids it reminds me how much I don't want any of my own."

"I don't think that it would even be wise", said Ranger. "With the group of mercenaries that I am secretly involved with, the fewer people who I am close to, the better it is. If we had a child, the child would be forever in danger." Ranger had told me a couple of months ago that he was part of a secret paramilitary group that performed a variety of functions. Ranger, being the best in the business in rescue operations, worked for this group consulting with the DEA, the CIA and the military. In his role, he trained staff on how to perform rescues, and had periodically led teams to perform rescues of all those people that the government didn't want to publicly be seen saving. He also trained staff in bodyguarding protocols. Although his involvement in the group was fairly innocuous, just being associated with them brought danger to Ranger and all his loved ones. Other trainers had been targeted in the past, and Ranger wasn't taking any chances. He was close to his family, but he kept them at an arm's length away from his business so that there wasn't a close association with him. Tank and I were the only people that Ranger had a visibly close relationship with. That was the reason that Ranger had asked me to wear the watch with the tracking device, and was one of the reasons that he had been hesitant about initiating a relationship with me. Of course, the fact that I had been going out with Morelli was another reason that he hadn't initiated a relationship with me as well. He was, and always would be, an honorable man who respected the boundaries that I set. His honor hadn't been the reason we had gotten together so many times when I was dating Morelli. The reason was that I wasn't very good at setting boundaries.

"I know", I said. "I figure that I have another five years of my mother hounding me for kids before she will finally give up and recognize that I don't want them."

"We can tough it out, babe."

"Will we even be together in another five years?" I said before I clapped my hand over my mouth. Although I didn't know how Ranger felt about our relationship, I also hadn't meant to ask him point blank about our future either. I didn't know if Ranger was ready to have that sort of conversation.

Ranger looked surprised. "I asked you to move in with me, didn't I?"

"I know you did, but I don't know how you feel about me."

"I don't know how you feel about me either", he said. "On my side, I've never asked to share closet space with anyone other than Rachel and you." Rachel was his ex-wife that he'd been married to for about ten minutes. "However, unlike with Rachel, I can see sharing closet space with you for the rest of my life. I had only asked Rachel to share closet space with me because she was pregnant. With you, I'm asking to share closet space because I want you there. I like going to sleep with you in my arms and waking up with your hands down my pants."

Good grief.

"What do you think about that?" he asked.

I paused. "You have a pretty fantastic closet", I said. And he did. It was a dressing room in size and had built-in shelves and drawers. It was the nicest closet that I had ever seen. "However, I don't think that we are actually talking about closets."

Ranger's lips quirked up in a half-smile of acknowledgment.

"I want to move in with you. I'm just scared."

"What has you scared, babe?"

"You are so perfect, and I'm just a fuck-up. I don't see what you see in me, and although I'd like this relationship to continue for forever, I know from experience that no one truly wants to commit to me for life. You're my best friend and I'm scared that, if we move in together, that you'll get tired of me and send me away. I don't know if I could cope with that. I would barely be able to cope with it now, but if I moved in permanently it would make it all the harder to cope with in the future."

"First of all, you are not a fuck-up. You are a compassionate, intelligent, loving person that I'm proud to call my girlfriend. Could you move in with me and just keep your apartment until you're more comfortable with the arrangement?"

"You think of me as your girlfriend?" I said. I was shocked that he was calling me his girlfriend in his own mind. I hadn't known whether our relationship was stable enough to call him my boyfriend in mine.

"Aren't you?"

"I don't know."

"I'd like to be boyfriend and girlfriend, and to tell you the truth you're the only person other than Rachel that I have ever spent the whole night through with before. Always, with other women, I left and woke up in my own bed in the morning."

"Are you serious?"

"You and Rachel are the only two serious relationships I have ever had, and Rachel was only serious because she got pregnant. That relationship was in its dying stages when we discovered that she was expecting Julie, but we got married and tried to make it work for the baby's sake. I'm serious about you, babe." He lifted my hand and kissed my fingers. "I don't know how to tell you that more than I have."

"I think", I said slowly, "that my discomfort with getting together with you is more of a reflection of how I see myself rather than how I see our relationship. I know I love you, and I'm starting to be more comfortable with telling you that. I know I love spending time with you and that I regard you as my best friend. It's just that you're perfect and I'm not, and I can't see why you would want to spend the rest of your life with me."

"What you have to realize is that I feel the same way. I feel that you're perfect and I'm not, and I don't see why you'd want to spend time with me. Your reticence about moving in with me isn't helping, and I'm trying not to take it personally. What you have to realize, however, is that although you may not think that you are perfect – and no one is – you are perfect _for_ _me_. I have never met someone I wanted to share my life with before I met you."

"So this is a serious relationship?"

"As serious as a guppy in a tank full of piranhas."

"Hunh. That's pretty serious."

Ranger smiled. "What do you think about that?" he asked.

"It will take me a little bit to get used to the idea", I said. "At first, it was easy to get together with you. I've never met anyone I wanted to jump as much as I want to jump you, but it's more than just chemistry. It's an emotional connection as well as a physical one. But while I recognize that, I also thought of you as a safe person to get together with since I thought you were as commitment shy as I was."

"And I traditionally have been with anyone other than you."

"One of the reasons I went out with Morelli was because I knew he was safe. He would periodically make noises about getting together with me, but he didn't really want to marry me. I knew that, so getting together with him was easy. We had tried to live together, but we hadn't lasted more than four months, and the last month that we were together was a grind and only occurred because Val was living in my apartment. I have found that three months seems to be the limit for people wanting to live with me."

"Then keep your apartment for six months after we move in together and then decide whether you are comfortable in letting your apartment go." He turned into Rangeman's underground garage and parked his car in front of the elevator. "Think about it, okay?"

I nodded. I would think of little else.

We got out of the car and, as we waited for the elevator, Ranger captured my hand and brought it up to his mouth to kiss my fingers. I liked it when he held my hand. It was a gentle joining that said that we were together. That was something that Morelli rarely did. For Morelli, physical contact was something that was done as a lead-up to sex. With Ranger, it was done because he wanted to be together with me, because he wanted the closeness associated with spending time together, and the reassurance of physical contact. I much preferred Ranger's way. I thought that I'd have to think more about that as well.

Ranger let me into his apartment, walked into the kitchen, and put the kettle on for a cup of herbal tea. That was something I had never really drunk before I started sharing space with Ranger. However, Ranger would frequently have a cup of peppermint tea after dinner, and I had started drinking a cup with him. It was a relaxing way to end the day.

I walked into his bedroom and changed into a pale blue camisole and tap pant set. I liked them as they made me feel feminine and sexy at the same time. While I didn't expect that they would stay on for the whole night – in fact, I was counting on them coming off – I still didn't want to sit around naked. I didn't even like wearing a nightie when I was just sitting around. The nighties that I preferred were all short and, unless I was going to bed with a pair of underwear on – something I reserved just for times when I was on my period – I didn't like sitting around in my nightie. The fabric always rose up and I ended up sitting bare-assed on the leather of the sofa, and that concept was just a little gross to me. I thought that it would be better when I did move in, and I had my housecoat to wear.

I had resorted to wearing Ranger's housecoat at times, and that was an orgasmic experience. Not only did Ranger's housecoat smell like his body wash, which brought back memories of sexy times that I'd had with Ranger, but the thought that the housecoat had last touched Ranger's naked body got me all hot and bothered. I suspected that Ranger knew that, and that's why he was so willing to share his housecoat with me.

I washed my face and brushed my teeth as I thought about everything Ranger and I had talked about, and as I took my birth control pill I came to a decision. I walked out of the bathroom and met Ranger in the den as he put our cups down on the coffee table. "Ranger?" I said.

He turned to me.

"I was thinking. I'm on birth control pills, and I am diligent about taking them. I was wondering whether you would like to ditch the condoms now." Ranger smiled as I looked at him. "I'm serious about you too."

He grinned with relief and he tugged me over to the sofa, sat down, and pulled me down beside him. I leaned against his side and his arm came over my shoulder to rest on my abdomen. "We can do that", he said. "Besides Rachel and a couple of times we've slipped up in the shower, I've never made love without a condom."

"Same with me", I said. "I got tested after I broke up with Dickie, and Morelli and I rarely made love without a condom either. We were too worried about getting pregnant."

"And you aren't worried about getting pregnant with me?"

"I am and I'm not. I don't want children but if it happened with you I have faith that we'd be able to cope. With Morelli, I didn't want kids but I also thought kids would be the death knell to our relationship. You have to have a strong relationship for it to be able to survive having children, and the relationship that I had with Morelli wasn't strong enough to withstand the demands of having a child. I think that our relationship is strong enough to withstand the stress if we got pregnant."

"We'd deal with it."

"Yes, we would."

"Yes, then I agree with you. There is no reason why we need to continue to use condoms."

I twisted my head and kissed Ranger's shoulder. He leaned forward and retrieved my tea, handed the mug to me, then retrieved his own. We settled back on the sofa and he kissed me on the top of my head. "Do you want to watch television?" he said.

"No."

"Do you want to play Scrabble?"

"No."

"Do you want to read a book?"

"No."

"Do you want to play Go Fish?"

"No." I put the mug of tea back on the coffee table and looked at him. "I'd rather do something using body language", I said.

Ranger smiled a half-smile as his eyes dilated and turned dark with arousal. "You want to play charades?" he said.


	15. Chapter 15

I woke up, naked, in Ranger's bed as Ranger's watch alarm went off. He shifted and, as I grasped him tighter, his chest rumbled in laughter. "You have to let me up, babe", he said.

"No."

"How about you get up and work out with me?"

I promptly let him go.

Ranger laughed and got to his feet. "I'll make coffee for you in an hour", he said. I think I groaned out my appreciation, as he laughed once more. I was back to sleep seconds later.

In what could have been a few minutes and what could have been a few hours, Ranger brought a cup of coffee to the bed to wake me up. He kissed me awake and, as I sat up and blearily pushed my hair out of my face, he passed me the coffee cup. "I have now found out the secret to getting out of bed in the morning", he said.

"Tell me that you'll make me coffee?"

"No. Ask you to work out with me."

I grimaced as he laughed, because he was right. Asking me to work out with him would get him released faster than anything else that he could say. My fear would be that if I didn't let him go he'd drag me down to the gym to exercise. And there was little I wouldn't do to avoid exercise.

Although, to be honest, I didn't hate it as much as I used to. I still didn't like stretching. Ranger was good at it and was able to do astounding things like touch his toes. Me? I thought if God wanted you to be able to touch your toes he would have put them on your knees. And I abhorred running, but now that Ranger had said that if I did fifteen minutes of cardio he'd get Ella to give me dessert with dinner, I didn't mind it so much. And it wasn't the skimpy-assed fruit and yogurt kind of dessert that Ranger preferred. He arranged for Ella to give me chocolate cake and pudding and custard and ice cream and homemade cookies. Ella was a fabulous cook, and her desserts made fifteen minutes of cardio worth it. I had always wanted to ask Ranger if I would get two desserts if I did a half-hour of cardio, but then I would realize that even Ella's desserts weren't worth a half-hour of cardio.

Where Ranger and I often spent the bulk of our time when we were working out was on the mats practicing self-defense. I had learned a lot since I had started training with Ranger, and I might even be able to protect myself against a walker-dependent senior now. The more serious skips would be out of my league still, but I thought I could now protect myself against those who were physically challenged. After all, cane-wielding grandmas had been known to get the best of me in the past, but they wouldn't get me now. That was a big improvement from where I was a few months ago, and I was proud of the progress that I had made.

After I climbing out of bed and using the facilities, Ranger got his housecoat out of the closet and wrapped it around me. He tied the sash and pulled me by the lapels into a deep kiss. We broke apart, both breathing heavily, when Ella walked into the apartment to deliver our breakfast. She wished us a good day as she left the apartment again, and Ranger smiled a sexy little half-smile. He looked down at me and kissed me on my nose. "Let's eat", he said.

I followed him to the kitchen and distributed the egg white, ham and cheese omelets and multigrain toast while Ranger refilled the coffee cups and brought them back to our seats. As we started to eat, Ranger said, "what do you have on for today?"

I groaned. "I'm taking Mary Lou out skip chasing", I said. "I have only a couple of skips outstanding. Luckily, they are both for low bonds so I shouldn't be exposing her to too much danger."

"Who do you have?"

"A couple of bright lights. In both cases, they are returning felons."

"They're repeat offenders?"

"Sort of. The first is a felon that broke into a junkyard to steal auto parts and got caught on the junkyard fence. When he was freed by a passerby, he broke into the junkyard again to try to retrieve the parts that he had decided to steal, and got caught again on the fence. The police rescued him the second time and arrested him for theft. The other felon was someone who had broken into a house and triggered a silent alarm. Apparently they saw some things they wanted, as they broke in again to the house when they were released on bail to steal the items that they'd seen. They triggered the alarm again."

"I remember that last case. Our company was the monitoring company the homeowners used. We responded to the silent alarm both times and, both times, made a citizen arrest until the cops could get there. If you have trouble picking up the felon, let me know. On behalf of the homeowners, I'd like to follow that felon through the system."

I finished my omelet and sighed with pleasure. Ella's omelets may have been missing the yummy yolk, but she used sufficient cheese to make the omelet tasty anyway. I smiled as I remembered Lula asking me once what Ranger had for breakfast. When I told her an egg white omelet, she told me that eating eggs without the yolk wasn't natural. She had asked me what they did with the yolk, and I had to tell her that I didn't know. I had been puzzling it out ever since.

"What's up for your day?" I asked.

"I'm meeting with Beiterman's this morning", said Ranger, "to go over their system redesign and costing. I then am working in the office for a while. I'm available for training this afternoon if you have time. I'm free at four-thirty."

"I don't know if I will make it", I said. "I want to give Mary Lou a good chance to discover the boredom associated with doing surveillance on a felon."

Ranger smiled. "You really don't want Mary Lou to pick up skips, do you?"

"I love Mary Lou like a sister, and we've been good friends long enough that I know her well. This is the same woman who cried when she broke a nail before her wedding. This is the same woman who refuses to wear anything other than high heels, even when she is out walking the dog. This is the same woman who thinks the definition of tragedy is wearing white shoes while carrying a black purse."

"Lula wears heels as well."

"Yes, but Lula is street tough. Mary Lou is not. I don't think she has the personality to be a good bounty hunter. She doesn't have the attitude for it and just isn't tough enough."

"She'll learn."

"But she doesn't have to. She is glorifying my life because my life is totally different than her life, and she wants something different to break her boredom. She's conveniently forgetting all the stabbings and gunshot wounds, the car bombings and carjackings, the kidnappings and muggings and thefts that I have experienced as a result of this job. If she had just one of them, it would devastate her. She wouldn't be able to cope."

"Okay, babe. Just remember that, at one time, that's what people thought about you as well."

"Did you think that about me?"

Ranger smiled. "I thought you were too sweet to be a good bounty hunter, but I admired your tenacity and your willingness to learn. I decided to help you so that I could keep my eye on you and protect you as much as I could." For some reason, I was affronted. "Now that I know you, I realize that you are still too sweet to be a bounty hunter but despite that, you are a damn good one. I still admire your tenacity and willingness to learn, and I have added admiration for your resourcefulness and intelligence. And I still like to protect you, just because you are the most important person in the world to me and because I don't have confidence in Lula's ability to provide good backup for the more challenging felons. It says nothing about your abilities and everything about Lula's." I felt appeased, and I smiled.

"You're my favorite backup person of all", I said.

Ranger smiled, put his dirty dishes on the tray, and said that he had to get moving. He finished up in the bathroom and hustled out of the apartment with a final kiss on my lips and the wish to have a successful day hunting.

Half an hour later, I knocked at my apartment door and, when Mary Lou didn't answer, I opened it up and called out to her that I was coming in. It was quarter after eight, fifteen minutes past my eight o'clock meeting time, and when I walked in I found that Mary Lou was still asleep. I shook her awake and, as I let her fully wake up, I made her a pot of coffee. She walked through from the bedroom and looked at me. "I thought you weren't going to be here until eight o'clock", she said.

"It's after eight", I said. "While the coffee percolates, how about you have a shower and get ready for the day."

"I bought some new clothes that would be suitable to go skip chasing in." She looked at me and grimaced. "Are you planning on changing here?"

I looked down at my t-shirt, jeans and Converse outfit that I wore a variation of each day, and then looked up at Mary Lou. "No, this is what I wear skip chasing. It's important to be comfortable for the long stakeouts in the car."

"I bought something a little more appropriate", said Mary Lou. "If I had known that you were so challenged for clothes, I would have bought you an outfit as well."

"What did you buy?"

"I looked in your closet and saw your black leather pants and I thought that would be what you'd wear, so I bought a matching pair."

I groaned. I had only worn that pair of pants once when I was attempting to get kidnapped. Ranger's daughter, Julie, had been kidnapped by someone who wanted to emulate Ranger in every way. I put myself out there to get kidnapped so that I could protect Julie when we were in captivity. Ranger found us and rescued us, but it was a scary time for everyone involved. The Ranger wannabe had told me that I had to look like a bounty hunter before he would kidnap me, and Ella had bought me the leather pants so that I could play my role. The pants were hot and too tight, and they gave me rub marks in places where my body shouldn't be rubbed. I had kept them because they were expensive and I thought they would be good for a costume party. I hadn't, however, been able to find my way to wearing them again. They brought up bad memories for me.

"The only person I know that goes skip chasing in leather is Joyce Barnhardt", I said.

Mary Lou grimaced. "I never want to be known as being remotely similar to Joyce", she said.

"Just wear something comfortable, something you can sit for long periods of time in and something you can run in if needed."

"I might have to run?" Mary Lou looked dismayed at that. "Fuck that shit. I bet Lula doesn't run."

"You'd be surprised", I said. I thought that I'd be surprised as well. Mary Lou was right in that Lula didn't like to run. However, I wasn't going to admit to that. I already had one partner that wouldn't fully support me in a capture. I didn't need another. "Running is part of the job."

Mary Lou sighed and trudged into the bathroom, and I poured myself a coffee, added cream, and prepared to wait for Mary Lou to finish primping and preening. As I waited, I pulled out my phone, walked down to the lobby of the apartment building, and called Lula. "Hey, girlfriend", she said as she answered.

"I have a favor to ask", I said. I told her about Mary Lou and her sudden desire to be a bounty hunter. "So I need the day to be extremely boring or, if it isn't, I need it to be dangerous. She isn't street-smart like you and won't make a good bounty hunter."

"Let's go after that Romeo creep then. We could get him. Wham!"

I smiled. "Ranger and I caught him on Saturday night", I said. I told her what had happened with Kanye and the kidnapping.

"He's not going to be happy", said Lula. "You'd better watch your back, girlfriend."

"I know."

Lula sounded uncertain as she said, "do you want Mary Lou to be your partner from now on?"

I groaned. "Good God, no. You're my partner and I'm happy about that. I don't want to change a thing."

I don't know how you could hear someone smile, but I could hear Lula smile over the phone. "That's okay then, girlfriend", she said. "We're Vinnie's hot girls, and we make a good team."

"You may be hot. I am not", I said as I laughed, "but I agree that we make a good team."

We agreed to meet in the bonds office in another half hour, and I walked back upstairs to my apartment. When I got inside, Mary Lou was still in the shower. Since I wanted to go to work, I started running hot water in the kitchen. There was a silence for a second before Mary Lou squealed. Short moments later, the water turned off and Mary Lou got out. "Did you run the water?" she said as she came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around herself.

"Me? No. Why?"

"The shower was the perfect temperature and then it suddenly turned cold."

"Yeah, the shower does that. The hot water tank isn't very large, so the showers you take have to be short."

"Lenny could fix that."

"I'm sure he could, but this is a rental apartment and I don't have jurisdiction to ask for something like a new hot water tank. You own your house and so you can make those kinds of changes if you want."

"Hunh." She poured herself a cup of coffee and disappeared back into the bathroom. I did the dishes. I caught up on my emailing and deleted all the penis enlargement and bondage advertisements. I caught up on my texting and Snapchat streaks. I sent a message to my mother to thank her for dinner the night before. I sent a message to Connie to let her know that Mary Lou would be coming in with me. I sent a message to Vinnie telling him that Ranger and I had brought in Romeo and Ranger would have his balls if Vinnie bonded him out again and, when I had done everything I could think of, I sat back on the sofa and turned on the television. I watched fifteen minutes of CNN before Mary Lou came out of the bedroom. She was wearing a skintight pair of leather pants and a leather bustier studded with silver. Her hair was teased out and she was wearing so much makeup that she looked like Sally Sweet when he was dressed in drag. "Are you ready to go?" I said.

"This is what a bounty hunter should look like", said Mary Lou with some satisfaction. "I could be a better bounty hunter than you. Morelli said that you aren't very good." I tensed. "Maybe if you dressed the part, you'd get more skips."

I sighed. It was going to be a long day.


	16. Chapter 16

Mary Lou and I got to the bonds office half an hour after Lula had arrived, and Lula was typically half an hour late for work. I had been waiting for Mary Lou for almost two hours, and my temper was frayed. I walked in the bonds office and gave Connie the body receipt for Romeo's capture. "Fifty percent goes to Rangeman, ten percent to Lula and forty percent to me", I said. "Is Vinnie in?"

"He's hiding from you", said Connie. "He said he got your text too late, and that he'd already bonded Romeo out again."

I sighed. "That was my fault for not telling him yesterday", I said.

"Yeah", said Vinnie as he came out of his office. "Tell Ranger that it wasn't my fault."

Connie grimaced. "Vinnie, did you bug the office again?"

Vinnie ignored her as he looked at Mary Lou. "Hey, Mary Lou. Are you going to a costume party?"

"Steph is going to take me out on some captures, and I wanted to dress the part."

"You look like Joyce when she brings her whip into the office."

"I think I'll be a successful bounty hunter. My mama always said that you need to dress the part if you want to play the part."

"Is that why you bought three wedding dresses when you were going out with Lenny?" I asked. "You thought that if you dressed like a bride you'd be a bride?"

"It worked, didn't it?"

"I guess so", I said. "But I didn't dress up as a bride at all until the wedding made me do it, and I got married as well."

"Yeah, but Dickie was desperate to marry you. You said that you wouldn't go to bed with him until you were married, and he wanted to go to bed with you very much."

"You didn't go to bed with Dickie before you were married?" said Lula in surprise.

"Yeah, Morelli had taken my virginity but he also taught me that men didn't stick around after having sex. So I thought it would be better for me to deny sex to Dickie unless he was willing to marry me."

"Did it work?"

"He married me, but I think my decision was harder on me than it was on him. While I remained celibate from the time Morelli and I were together until Dickie and I got married, Dickie continued having sex with a number of women while we were engaged. Saying I was bursting was an understatement."

"You might not have gotten married if you hadn't been bursting like that ", said Lula. "Bursting has to be one of the most unnatural states that ever existed."

"I agree", I said. "I had a long drought between Dickie and Morelli the second time as well. I hadn't met anyone worth breaking my drought with."

"Dickie was that good in bed?" asked Vinnie. I looked at him, and he was salivating and drooling on his shirt. There was nothing Vinnie liked better than a good sex story – unless it was sex itself.

"No, Dickie was that bad in bed. I thought that Morelli just had been very good when I was sixteen and had spoiled me for future relations."

"And now that you have more experience?" said Vinnie.

I smiled. "I don't have piles of experience, but I often think how funny Dickie's name is."

"Why's that?" said Vinnie.

"If you have a word that ends in an 'ie' ending, it often is a diminutive form of the actual word. It denotes something small. And I always thought it was ironically accurate for Dickie to have the diminutive form of the word 'dick' in his name. It truly is a case of accurate advertising."

Lula laughed. "He looks like he'd have a small dick, as well. I can often tell. My past profession taught me how to read the size of a man's dick by the way he moves and holds himself. Dickie has a little bush. Morelli and Ranger both have trunks, right?" The other four people looked at me and I blushed. Lula laughed. "The professional always knows. When I was a kid in school I went to the zoo once, and when I was a 'ho I realized that men's trunks were like some of the zoo animals and I rated my johns accordingly. Some looked like elephant shrews, with trunks that were small and short. Some looked like tapirs, with broad and short trunks. Some looked like anteaters, all broad at the base and narrow at the top. And some looked like full-sized elephants. Sometimes they were so ugly and hairy that I had to pretend they were Mr. Snuffleupagus to be able to perform."

I looked at Mary Lou and Vinnie, and they had shared mutual looks of horror on their faces. I glanced at Connie, and she looked a little like she had the same reaction to Lula's speech that I had, and that was to try not to laugh. We had heard Lula's thoughts on Mr. Snuffleupagus before. At least she wasn't doing her Mr. Snuffleupagus voice at the moment.

"You didn't truly pretend that men had a Mr. Snuffleupagus, did you?" said Vinnie. He sounded a bit affronted.

"Do you think 'hos think about how great the sex is?" said Lula. "It's a little like going to work for the day to a boring job. You go in, do the task, make the right noises, get paid, and do it all again with someone else. I used to create my grocery list while I was servicing my johns. It gave me something to do."

"My 'hos like me to service them", said Vinnie.

Lula laughed. "Are you certain about that?" she said.

Vinnie stared at her. "My 'hos always sound like they are enjoying it."

Lula started to moan in a "When Harry Met Sally" scenario, and Vinnie adjusted himself when she got to the end. "Like that, Vinnie? Do they sound like that?"

Vinnie turned around and rushed back into his office. "I have to go", he said as he shut the door.

"Turn down the volume on your computer this time", yelled Connie.

Lula turned to Connie. "Say hi to Mistress Melody when she comes", she said. "Tell her that she owes me drinks for this one. Steph and Mary Lou and I are going to do surveillance."

"I have another couple of files coming in today", said Connie, "and I tried calling them to remind them of their court dates. One hasn't answered his phone since last Thursday, and the other said that she didn't think she could get a sitter to look after her kids while she was in court. I don't expect either of them to show up, so clean up these two old ones if you can so that you are free for these two new ones."

"Okay", I said. I took my check from her hands and put it in my purse, took out my file that I had created on each of the skips, and handed it to Lula. "Let's go after the woman robber first. She has kids, and I'd like to get her bonded out again today as quickly as she can so that her kids don't suffer."

"We'll do well. I have my lucky rabbit's foot with me, and it brought us luck on Saturday."

"Lula, I got pulled out of my car and told that I would make a good 'ho."

"Yeah, but Kanye never got the chance to drug you before we were able to get away. I'm telling you, that rabbit's foot is lucky."

"I don't think it was the rabbit's foot that helped us get away. I think it was the vomit."

Lula laughed. "Yeah, but it was the rabbit's foot that told me that I should buy you a dozen doughnuts."

I shook my head.

Mary Lou was still stuck on the information about who we were going to capture. "We're going after a mother who was robbing a house?" She sounded horrified.

I led them out to the parking lot and opened Ranger's Explorer. "Not everyone who is caught is a bad person, and the sooner you realize that, the better you'll learn. Perhaps they just had some bad luck. Perhaps they just made a wrong choice. Perhaps they had a poor childhood or perhaps they were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are as many reasons for a person to break the law as there are people, and you can't look down on the felons because you haven't walked in their shoes."

"Why did you become a 'ho?" Mary Lou asked Lula.

"My mother was a crack addict and I found that, if I wanted to eat, I needed to bring in money. I couldn't work in a standard job as I needed a social security number for that, and I never lived in a house long enough for a social security number to be sent to me. Besides, I didn't have the clothes suitable to work in no office job. So I decided to earn it on my back like my mother had. Unlike my mother, however, I refused to take drugs. I didn't do that shit, and that's what saved me. That, and Vinnie. He gave me a job as a file clerk when I needed a job, and Connie helped me fill out the paperwork to get my social security number. Vinnie paid me in cash until my number came in, and then he hired me formally. Through him, I've been able to get my own apartment in a better part of town and my own car. My life has improved drastically since meeting Vinnie and becoming part of the team."

"He always seemed like a bit of a jerk to me", said Mary Lou.

"He is", I said, "but he also has his good points, and as slimy as he is, he also has a big heart. He let me blackmail him into a job, and he has stood by me ever since."

"I make fun of him with a select group of people", said Lula, "but I'd stand by him as well. He's a slimeball, but he's a good man as well."

"I'm equally as loyal to him", I said. "Like anybody, he has his good points as well as his bad."

I parked three houses down the street in our first felon's neighborhood. We were just off Stark on the nicer end of the street, and the neighborhood was quiet. Residents were sleeping off the night before or, for the odd person, were out at their job. We had arrived quite late in the morning and I hoped that Shania could be bonded out again that day. I knew that, if we were to have a chance at that, we would have to capture her quickly.

As we parked our car, we got out the tools that we would need to do our job. Lula pulled out her gun. "No!" I said. "No guns."

"Hunh. You have all these rules. I'll put my gun away as long as you get out your gun."

I sighed. I knew Lula was serious. I got out of the car and walked to the trunk. I put on the bulletproof vest that Ranger had special ordered for me, and my utility belt. If nothing else, I thought Ranger would be glad that I had gone in dressed. I put my gun in my holster, shook and activated my pepper spray and put it on my utility belt, added my Maglite for bashing purposes, and attached my cuffs. Appeased, Lula put a bottle of pepper spray in her pocket.

"Don't I get anything?" asked Mary Lou.

"No!" said Lula and I together.

"Steph is the bounty hunter", said Lula. "That's why she has the gun and the tools. I'm the bounty hunter's assistant, which is why I have the pepper spray. You're the bounty hunter's assistant's assistant, which is why you get nothing."

"That doesn't seem fair", said Mary Lou. Her lip stuck out in a pout, and Lula and I shook our heads.

When we were all suited up, the three of us walked up to the door of the apartment building. There was a flimsy security system on the building, and we buzzed apartments until someone let us in.

We walked up the stairs to the second floor. Windows at each end of the hallway allowed a breeze to whip through the building. We knocked on the door of Shania's apartment. There was a silence. I knocked again. "Bond enforcement", I said, although I couldn't tell if there was someone in the apartment and just staying silent, or whether there was truly no one there. I listened at the door, but I still didn't hear anything. "Let's go and watch the apartment building", I said. I led Lula and Mary Lou out to the car. We powered down the windows and sat. After a while, we played twenty questions. Mary Lou had a nap. Lula had a nap, but I woke her up when she started to snore. Lula grumbled because she hadn't napped more than five minutes before I woke her up. I cleaned out my purse. Lula cleaned out her purse. Mary Lou cleaned out her purse. Mary Lou started to shift and fidget. Lula and I sat stoically. We both did the same thing that Ranger did when he was doing surveillance. We entered a zen-like state that was boring to watch.

The wind started to whip up and the sky grew gray. We powered up our windows and, as I was telling Mary Lou that no, we couldn't put the air conditioner on while the car was stopped, I spotted Shania walking into the building with a child in tow. I swore under my breath. I hated capturing skips when their kids or their parents were there. In most cases, the kids or the parents didn't understand what was going on, and it was upsetting to them to see their loved one taken into custody.

I pointed them out to Lula and Mary Lou, and Lula swore when she saw the kid. "Let's go", I said.

We got out of the car, went into the building and climbed the stairs to Shania's door. I knocked on the door again, and Shania came to the door and opened it. A child was holding onto her legs with one hand and had her thumb in her mouth with the other.

"Freeze, sucker", said Mary Lou, and she whipped out the pepper spray from my utility belt and sprayed it in Shania's face as a gust of wind blew down the hallway. The pepper spray blew back in my face and my eyes began to burn.

"What the hell?" I said.

Mary Lou sprayed again as I knocked the can of pepper spray out of her hands. The spray was redirected and shot directly in the toddler's face before the canister hit the floor. The little girl started to scream as she rubbed her eyes, and her mother swore at us, kicked the canister out of the apartment, and slammed the door.

"Let's go", I said as I stumbled into the wall.

"We have to root that bitch out of her hole", said Mary Lou. "I almost had her."

"Shania has to look after her daughter now", I said. "Remember what I said. Often people that we are picking up are good people in bad situations. Her daughter needs her mother now, and because of you we have lost our ability to capture Shania for sure for today, and likely at all. Because of you, we have lost our capture fee. So thank you. If I can't make rent this month, it will be your fault."

"I was just trying to help."

Lula took my arm and guided me out of the hallway to the staircase, down the stairs, and out to the car. I handed her the keys and got in the passenger seat. Neither Lula nor I said anything else to Mary Lou.

"Look, I'm sorry. I goofed up."

"I, at least, understand what has happened. That little girl up there has had a face of pepper spray and she doesn't understand what has happened to her. Think about what you would do if it was your son who had been blasted with pepper spray."

"We can go back tomorrow, can't we?"

"No. We'll be handing the file off to Rangeman for them to pick up. There is no way that Shania will want to go anywhere with us, and getting her cooperation now will be impossible. We're done for the day. Lula, can you please stop by my apartment on the way back to the bonds office so that we can drop Mary Lou off? I'll get a patrol guy to drive the car and me back to Ranger's."

"I made a mistake. Perhaps I could go and pick up Shania, perhaps I could explain to her why I did what I did."

"No, Mary Lou. You've caused enough damage. Because of what you've done, I have to take the rest of the day off and not make any money and you've lost our ability to pick up our skip."

"I want to go back today."

"We aren't. I'm in no condition to go back, and I'm the one with the Right to Apprehend papers. Without those papers, you can't legally do anything."

Mary Lou pouted all the way to my apartment, and we dropped her off in front of the building. I barely said goodbye to her, and Lula didn't wait to make sure that Mary Lou was in the building before she peeled away. "If her lip was sticking out any farther she would have tripped over it", said Lula.

"Really?" I said. My eyes were closed against the light and my cheeks were wet with tears. "I couldn't see."

"She treated you like you were the one in the wrong."

I sighed. "I know. In her eyes, she probably thought that I was being too unappreciative of her efforts."

"She pepper sprayed you."

"She didn't mean to."

"Do we have to take her with us tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Let me calm down and ask me later. I suspect that it would be a different answer in a few hours than it would be right now."

Lula chuckled. "Kind of makes you appreciate me more, doesn't it?"

I laughed. "Lula, I always appreciate you. I'm always glad that you're my partner."

"I wasn't sure since you are doing so many of your captures with Ranger now."

"I know, but that's because we are using the captures as dates. We talk a lot when we are doing surveillance, you know? It isn't because I don't want to do the captures with you. I'm trying also to do the scary captures with Ranger. Some of our captures are easy ones, and those are the captures that I want to do with you. But when we get people like Romeo to capture, people who have a severe anger management problem or who have a history of killing bounty hunters, or people like Ramirez? Yeah, I want Ranger's help for those. It's just not worth putting you in jeopardy just for the chance to be independent." Ramirez was a particularly violent felon that both Lula and I had come across when I first became a bounty hunter. He had assaulted Lula so badly that she still, to this day, periodically experienced pain from her injuries and she probably always would. While it gave her the incentive to change her life and leave being a hooker behind, it was more her optimistic attitude and her refusal to be a victim that made her act like the phoenix rising from the ashes. I greatly admired her and what she had made of her life, and was amazed at her fortitude and determination to make herself better.

Lula parked behind the bonds office and guided me into the building. I was starting to regain my sight, although my eyes were still streaming steadily and the burning feeling hadn't left yet. She guided me to the sofa and let me sit down.

"Do you want me to text Ranger?" said Lula.

I sighed. "I think you'll have to", I said. "Tell him I need a patrol team to pick me up."

Lula sent a text to Ranger, and said a few minutes later that Ranger was on his way.

"What did he say?" I said.

"He said 'ow. Be there in a few."

I sighed and I started to shake. I imagined Morelli getting angry at me, and I hoped that Ranger wouldn't yell at me too. It was my fault. I was the one that had let Mary Lou be part of the capture.

Lula explained to Connie what had happened, and Connie got a cold bottle of water from the fridge and handed it to me. I held the cold to my burning eyes, and Lula passed me the tissue box so that I could wipe away the snot running down my face.

"See?" she said. "I told you that my rabbit's foot would bring us luck."

"Bring us luck! I got pepper sprayed and, more importantly, a toddler got pepper sprayed as well."

"Yeah, but it's my rabbit's foot and I didn't get pepper sprayed. Perhaps I should buy you your own rabbit's foot."

I smiled, but I didn't tell her that no amount of rabbit feet would give me enough luck. It was my experience that I always ended up with the pepper spray in my face.

About five minutes later, Ranger walked into the office. He came over to me and pulled the bottle away from my eyes. He inspected my face, then gave me a kiss on the top of my head. "You did a good job", he said.

I blindly took another tissue from the box and wiped my nose again.

"How did this happen?" asked Ranger. I tensed, and he put his arm around my shoulder until he could reach the back of my neck, and massaged away the tense muscles.

"It was my fault", I said.

Lula snorted. "It wasn't your fault at all, girlfriend. It was Mary Lou's and only Mary Lou's."

"I was the one that took her out. I was the one who didn't prepare her properly."

I could just see Lula glaring at me. "It wasn't your fault." She explained to Ranger what had happened.

"I don't understand", said Ranger. "How was it your fault? From what Lula said, it was Mary Lou's fault. She was the one that stole the pepper spray. She was the one that sprayed the child and you. This was in no way your fault."

"I let her come out with us."

"You were doing her a favor. You were trying to help her out, babe. I'm just glad that she didn't grab your gun."


	17. Chapter 17

Ranger guided me into the car, clicked my seatbelt into place, and seconds later dropped into the driver's seat. "Let's get you home so that you can have a shower." There was a silence in the car. "What's wrong?" said Ranger.

"I'm just waiting for you to yell."

"I'm not going to yell."

"Morelli would yell at me."

"I'm not Morelli."

"Dickie would have yelled."

"I'm not Dickie."

"My parents would have yelled."

"I'm definitely not your parents." He snaked his hand under my hair and massaged the tense muscles in the back of my neck. "Look, babe, I believe that anger is an unproductive emotion. You know that. Even if I was angry at you, which I am not, I wouldn't take it out on you. You can't help your feelings, but you can help your reaction to them. I will never take out my anger on you. I will never take out my anger on anyone."

"You did when you beat up Kanye."

Ranger flushed in embarrassment. "You're right. But I didn't lose control. Kanye, after I put him down gently, got up and attacked me. I neutralized the threat. It was self-defense. End of story."

"I keep thinking that there was something I should have done to stop her before she got to the point that she was stealing my pepper spray."

"What could you have done?"

"I don't know."

"That's what you have to hang into, babe. There was no way of knowing that the situation would end the way it had. There was no way of predicting that that Mary Lou would act with the stupidity that she did. This is in no way your fault." He paused as I started to cry. He captured my hand in his and pulled it to his mouth to kiss my fingers. "Babe, I wish I could get across to you that I'm not angry and, even if I was, we'd deal with it together. This isn't me against you. This is us together against the problem. Can you let me in? Can you work with me as we solve problems together?"

I was silent for a moment as I thought about what Ranger had said, and I wiped the tears away from my face. "It's hard to learn new methods of reacting to things", I said.

He sighed. "I know, babe." He turned into Rangeman's parking garage and parked in front of the elevators. He guided me to the elevator and up to his apartment, then through to the master bath, stripped the clothes off me and turned on the water in the shower. He adjusted the temperature before guiding me inside. Fifteen minutes later I had washed my eyes out as much as I could, and I was getting bored with showering. I wanted to go to sleep and pretend the day had never happened.

When I got out of the shower, Ranger was sitting on the bathroom vanity waiting for me. He grabbed a towel and dried my hair, then gently dried my body. He wrapped the towel around my body and carefully pulled me into a hug. "I'm sorry", I said. He pulled me tight to his torso and rubbed my back. As much as he said he didn't feel anger, I could feel it coursing through his body and I tensed in reaction.

"I'm not angry with you, babe", he said quietly. "I'm pissed that you think I would be angry with you. I'm pissed at Morelli for treating you as though you were at fault for everything, even things that were clearly not your fault. I'm pissed at Dickie for treating you as the same way. I'm pissed at your parents for not supporting you the way that you deserved to be supported. I'm not, however, pissed at you for what happened."

"It's just that I want you to like me so fucking much."

"I do, babe." He paused. "Did Morelli ever hit you?"

"No, but Dickie did. Once. He used to yell at me, just like Morelli yelled at me. With Dickie I wouldn't talk back to him. He would threaten to hit me all the time, but the day I found him on the dining room table with Joyce, I yelled at him for the first time – and he hit me. I walked out, but it was like a switch had been flipped in me. It was a contentious divorce because I decided that I wasn't going to accept someone treating me like that." I paused. "I never told anyone that before." I was silent for a moment. "Morelli never hit me, but I don't really understand when people yell at me. I'm not a yeller myself. With Morelli, I hated it when he yelled at me, but at least I wasn't frozen and could fight back – unlike with Dickie. With Dickie, I would freeze and, until I found him with Joyce, I was too scared of him to fight back."

Ranger tugged me into the bedroom over to the closet. He floated one of his shirts over my head and handed me a clean pair of underwear. When I was dressed, he led me to the bed and waited until I lay down. He took off his gun belt and lay down beside me. "I have to go soon", he said, "but I really need to hold you for a few minutes."

That was fine by me. I really needed to be held.

Ranger pulled me into his body and I buried my nose in his chest. I could smell the Bulgari Green on him, and for one of the first times ever I found it more comforting than arousing. He kissed me on the top of my head and rubbed my back, and feeling loved and secure, I relaxed and fell asleep.

When I woke, Ranger had already returned to his office. I stretched and rolled over. My eyes still felt swollen, but they had finally stopped weeping. I sat up and got a tissue and blew my nose. I was pleased that the congestion had cleared and I could breathe again. I pulled on a pair of yoga pants and padded through to the front door and retrieved my purse, pulled my phone from the interior pocket and checked my messages. There were three from Mary Lou, one from Lula, one from Morelli, and one from Vinnie. I clicked into Vinnie's text first. "There are two more files for you to chase. Leave Mary Lou at home. I'm already facing being sued from her going out with you today." Lula's message was basically the same. I then looked at Mary Lou's messages. The first was, "I'm sorry, Steph. I fucked up." The second was, "Please call me. I don't want you to be mad at me." The third message was, "I'm pissed that you aren't texting me back. What do I have to do to let you know that I'm sorry?" The one from Morelli was the most recent one. "Let me know that you're okay. Mary Lou called me. She sounded frantic. Something about pepper spraying you? Call me."

I wrote a message to Lula that I needed her to send me the particulars on the files. I said that I'd be into the office the next day, but I might want to research the files at Rangeman before I go into the office. I told Vinnie that I'd be able to go out again chasing skips the next day. I called Morelli to talk to him rather than text him. "Hey", I said.

"Mary Lou is frantic to get to you. I figured you were at Rangeman, but I also figured that you didn't want Mary Lou going to see you there. I told her that I didn't know where you were."

"Thank you."

"What happened?"

"I took Mary Lou out skip chasing today, and it was a disaster. First, it took her two hours to get ready to go. When we finally got to the office, I decided we'd go after Shania Boone. It was supposed to be an easy capture. Shania wasn't there when we got there, so we did three hours of surveillance before she came home. She had her toddler with her. We went up and met her at her apartment and, when I started to introduce ourselves to her, Mary Lou stole my pepper spray out of my utility belt and sprayed Shania. She shouldn't have done it and the only good thing was that happened was that the pepper spray didn't hit Shania. The only problem was that a wind came through the hallway and blew the pepper spray back into my face. That was bad enough, but I knocked the canister out of Mary Lou's hand as she tried again, and Mary Lou sprayed the toddler. The little girl started screaming and Shania slammed the door in our faces as she left to look after her daughter."

"It's too bad that the pepper spray didn't hit Mary Lou in the face. She will never learn the consequences of her actions if she doesn't have to suffer from the consequences."

"Both Lula and Vinnie have requested that I don't bring her back."

"What is your capture plan for Shania now?"

"I don't want to stress her out any more than she is. I'll send Rangeman to pick her up. It is someone they want to see through the system anyway. They were the people that responded to the security alarm the first two times that she was arrested."

"You might want to contact Mary Lou. She was pretty upset when I spoke to her. She said she was planning on calling your parents next."

"This is like the nightmare that never ends."

"Where did you go when you left her?"

"I went back to Ranger's, had a long shower, and went to bed. I just woke up."

"Okay. Kanye was awarded bail today. I think Vinnie bonded him out. I'd send Tank or someone like that to pick him up if he skips court. I'd keep Ranger far away from him."

"Okay."

"Out of the fifteen girls working for him, thirteen were found on our missing persons database. This case is huge."

"I'm glad he was caught."

"Ranger fucked him up pretty bad. I always wondered what it would take to make Ranger lose control. I guess I just found out."

"He doesn't take threats to me well, and he doesn't like it when I'm scared."

"I can understand that. I don't either."

"I know." We absorbed that for a moment, and then I said, "so, are you seeing Terry now?"

Morelli sounded surprised as he said, "where did you hear that?"

"The Tasty Pastry."

Morelli laughed. "Terry and I have been working together on a particular case. We met for breakfast in a motel room, and Henrietta Wilson saw us leaving the motel room together. You know what a gossip she is, and she spread the rumor that we've been having an affair. Since it has suited our case to have us linked together romantically, we have let the rumors spread. It gives us more leeway in doing our collaboration. Don't worry, I'm not truly seeing her."

"That's good. She wouldn't be good for your career."

"I'm still living in hope that you'll come back."

"I'm sorry, Joe."

"Yeah, I know. I need to go. Call me if you need help with anything."

"Thanks."

"I love you, cupcake."

I sighed. "I love you too. I just don't love you in the way I need to for a successful relationship."

"We had a good run of it though, didn't we?"

I smiled sadly. "Yes, we did."

I could hear someone talking in the background as Morelli covered the mouthpiece of the phone with his hand. He came back on the phone. "I really do have to go this time, cupcake. Take care of yourself." As I said goodbye to him, he hung up the phone.

Just as I hung up the phone with Morelli, my mother called. "Steph", she yelled into the phone. It was on speakerphone, and my mother hadn't figured out that you didn't need to yell to be heard over the phone. "Mary Lou said that you'd been attacked today and you'd lost your sight." I could hear the tears in my mother's voice.

I sighed. "I didn't lose my sight, Mom", I said. I explained what had happened again.

"It was bad of Mary Lou to have sprayed the pepper spray, but if you had a different job this wouldn't have been an issue. Mary Lou stealing the canister wasn't the problem. The fact that you had the canister with you in the first place was the problem. The button factory is hiring right now. You could get a great job working on the line. The button factory even offers a pension plan and they have benefits."

"I know, Mom, but I'm happy working the two jobs that I'm working. I'm actually earning money now, and the jobs are both interesting."

"Mary Lou said that you were kidnapped the other day."

"I was, but I wasn't kidnapped for very long. Ranger saved me."

"What was he doing when you were kidnapped?"

"He was taking our skip into the precinct."

"If you worked at the button factory, you wouldn't have any crazed kidnappers after you."

"There are kidnappers everywhere", I said. "The kidnapper wasn't interested in me because I was a bounty hunter. They were interested in me just because they saw me and thought I would be a good person to make into a hooker." In my mind's eye, I could see my mother crossing herself.

"Where did he see you?"

"Ranger and I were capturing a skip on Stark."

"See? If you had a job at the button factory, you wouldn't be capturing skips and you wouldn't be exposed to anyone on Stark at all."

"I'm not applying at the button factory, Mom."

"It would be good for you, Steph. What do you have in your life? You have a boyfriend, but you have no children, and if you continue to be a bounty hunter you will likely never have children. You have a job where you get hurt, where you get kidnapped. You go into unsafe areas and you have the scars on your body to prove it. How many times have you been shot? How many times has your car been blown up? I asked Joe, and he said that Ranger lives in an office building. He has no permanence. Is that the kind of person you want to settle down with? Joe has a nice house. He has a good job. He could provide for you and give you the family you need. Does Ranger even want kids?"

"Ranger is already a father", I said. "I don't think he's interested in becoming a father again."

"He already has kids?"

"Remember Julie? She was kidnapped a while ago. She lives in Florida."

"So you could become a stepmother? Why don't you want to become a mother on your own?"

"It's just not something that interests me."

"Is this because Ranger doesn't want children?"

"No. I don't want children because _I_ don't want children. I love Val's kids, but I don't love to be with them. I couldn't do what Val does day in and day out. I would be praying for someone to shoot me."

"Mary Lou is happy."

"No, Mary Lou has left Lenny currently and is finding her way as to what she'd like to do – get a divorce and a job, or get back together with Lenny. She has a lot of thinking to do."

I could hear my grandmother walk in the room. "Stephanie is on the line", my mother said.

"I heard that your eyes were gouged out with a spoon", said my grandmother.

"No, Grandma. They were just sprayed with pepper spray."

"That doesn't make a very good story." She sounded disappointed before brightening again. "I'll tell people that they were gouged out with a spoon."

"No, Grandma. Do not tell people that my eyes were gouged out. People would get confused when they saw me at Giovichinni's and I had both my eyes in working order."

"I have to say something. I went to the Cut 'n Curl this afternoon after Mary Lou called, and I told everyone that you had been blinded."

"Grandma!" I said.

My mother, at the same time, said, "Ma!"

"What did it feel like?" said my grandmother.

"It is the biggest burning pain that you could ever imagine."

"I would have liked to have felt that."

"No, Grandma, you really wouldn't. It is very uncomfortable and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

"What are you planning on doing with Mary Lou?"

"I don't know. Vinnie and Lula have both requested that I don't take her out with me again. Vinnie said something like we could get sued for spraying the little girl, and that our liability insurance wasn't high enough to take her out again. Mary Lou will be disappointed, but I don't think I have a choice. She can still stay in my apartment while she figures out her life though."

"Maybe you should spray Mary Lou in the face", said my grandmother.

"Ma!" said my mother in a scandalized tone. I could imagine her crossing herself.

"That would certainly do something." I heard Ranger walk into the apartment. "I have to go. Ranger is home, which means that Ella will be up soon with our dinner."

"Take it easy", said my mother.

"And bathe your eyes in milk", said my grandmother.

"Why?" I asked.

"When you eat something hot, you drink milk to stop the burning. It just makes sense that, if you get hot stuff in your eyes, washing your eyes out with milk would stop the burning."

"That's an idea", I said. I looked up and smiled at Ranger. He walked over to me and kissed me on the top of my head. "I have to go. I'll talk to you later?"

My mother and grandmother hung up the phone and I turned to Ranger. "Lula?" he said.

I smiled. "My mom and grandmother. Mary Lou called them and told them that I'd been blinded. My mom was crying when she called and my grandmother was down at the Cut 'n Curl to tell everyone that I had my eyes gouged out with a spoon. Apparently getting sprayed with pepper spray didn't make a good enough story."

"Babe."

"I know. I think I smoothed things over with them. I smoothed things over with Morelli."

"Morelli was upset?"

"Mary Lou contacted him as well. He sent a text saying that she was contacting everyone as she tried to find me, so I called him back. I asked him about Terry."

"What did he say?"

"He said that he's working together with her on a case, and he was glad that the rumor mill was linking them together as it would make it easier if they didn't have to skulk around."

"Do you feel better now?"

"Yes, I do."

Ranger sat down beside me and pulled me into a hug. "Have you talked to Mary Lou yet?"

"Not yet, but she's been busy. She left me three texts, has talked to Morelli and my parents, and I would assume Lula and Connie and Vinnie. I don't know who else she's talked to. She's just stirring things up and creating problems for me. She's been trying to figure out where you live so that she can come to see us. Morelli kept your location a secret, but it is making my mother question where you live now. Because of Mary Lou, my mom and grandmother will demand to see your apartment. And I don't want them to see your apartment. So far we've kept Morelli and Lula out. Hell, your family hasn't seen where you live. Julie hasn't even seen where you live. My family will just have to suffer."

"We'll deal with that when it comes up", he said. "Ella will be up in about fifteen minutes with our dinner. Do you want to call Mary Lou first?"


	18. Chapter 18

Mary Lou picked up the phone after letting it ring four times. "Steph", she said, "you finally called me back. Are you over your snit now?"

I put the call on speakerphone so that I didn't have to hold the phone up to my ear, and placed it on the coffee table. I cuddled into Ranger's side, and he brought his arm down over my shoulder and rested his hand on my abdomen in my favorite cuddle position. Of course, all cuddle positions with Ranger were pretty darn good.

"I wasn't in a snit", I said. "I couldn't see, and when I got home I had a long shower to try to wash out the spray from my eyes. After my shower I went to bed and slept for a while. I just got the texts and phone calls from everybody. My mother was in tears because you told her that I had been blinded, and Morelli was concerned and wanted to know what happened as well."

"He knows where you are, doesn't he?"

"I don't know."

"I asked him where Ranger's house is, and he said that he's never seen where Ranger lives. He said he couldn't help me."

"That's true. He hasn't ever seen where Ranger lives."

"He could have looked it up on the computer for me."

"Joe has more respect for our privacy than that."

"I'd like to come to give you some flowers to apologize for spraying you today."

"I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm not telling you where Ranger's place is located."

"What's with the secrecy? Does he live on Stark or something?"

"Or something."

"Hunh. I'll ask your mother."

I started to shake, and Ranger kissed the top of my head. "You are just trying to stir the pot, and I don't appreciate it."

"I just don't understand what's so secret about it."

"And you don't have to understand. I'm not telling you where Ranger's house is."

"I just want to come see you."

"No."

There was a silence for a moment. "What time are you picking me up tomorrow?"

"I'm not. Vinnie has requested that you don't go on any further captures because our insurance doesn't cover as much liability as we would need for you to accompany us."

"Vinnie's being an old fuddy duddy. So I shot the pepper spray."

"A toddler got it in her eyes!"

"She'll live."

"Yes, but that's despite the point. There is a little girl out there who spent part of the day in pain because of you. I don't care that you blasted me. However, it means that I can no longer pick up that skip. It means that the perfectly cooperative skip who answered the door will likely no longer be cooperative if she sees me again. This means that I won't get the capture fee and it will then be paid out to Rangeman."

"I'll fix this", she said.

"I don't know how you'll do so, but okay."

"I don't know either, but I'll figure out something." There was a pause. "I need you to do something for me. I need you to go to my house and pick up my hair straightener."

"No."

She sighed. "I don't know how you get to meet hot guys when you are chasing skips, and the only man that I met was Vinnie. What I do know is that no hot guy will look at me twice without straightened hair."

"I don't meet hot guys in general. I was just lucky with Morelli and Ranger."

"I want to meet someone like Ranger." I could feel Ranger grimace behind me. "He taught you how to be a bounty hunter, didn't he? He could teach me how to be a bounty hunter as well. Come on, Steph. It's the perfect solution. You know it is. When he is finished training me I could be your sidekick."

"No."

"Steph!"

"Mary Lou! Ranger taught me when his business wasn't as busy as it currently is. He now has people working for him and has so much work coming in the doors that he doesn't have time to train anyone as well."

"He'll make time for me."

"No, he won't."

"You're just afraid that he'll prefer me over you, just like Lenny did when we were in high school. Lenny had liked you until he got to know me, do you remember that?"

"I do, and I was always really glad that he liked you better. I was even gladder when you seemed to like him back."

"You're just saying that. Lenny called me. He wants me to come home, and he's said that he won't have any affairs on me any longer."

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder?"

"I don't know. I've been enjoying sleeping."

"Don't you miss your kids?"

"I do. Timothy had a presentation to do at school today, and it just about killed me to not be there for it. The kids don't understand why I left."

"It is a pretty difficult thing for a child to understand."

"I know. I'm not ready to go back yet. Lenny has been treating me as though I don't have any sexual value now that I had my fourth. Just because I have stretch marks doesn't mean that I no longer have value, does it?"

"Of course not. There are many sexual kittens that have stretch marks. If a person loves you, they love all of you, body and soul. After all, you shouldn't have to put up a reduction in your sexual life if you are getting older, and when you are older you have wrinkles in addition to stretch marks."

"Euww. Not the best image there, Steph."

"My grandmother says that is the reason older people lose their eyesight. It's so they can't see the wrinkles during sex. She says there's a distinct relationship between the number of wrinkles a person has and the quality of their vision."

Mary Lou laughed. "You're okay if I stay here for a while?"

"I am. Just tell me when you leave."

"Okay. I'll figure out something to do tomorrow. Today, after you left me at your apartment this afternoon, I cleaned your place for you. It's very lonely living on your own, isn't it?"

"I don't have four little kids all demanding attention."

"I miss them."

"I know."

"Lenny shoved a note under your door saying that I'm his."

I froze. "What did the note say specifically?"

"It said, 'you're mine'. I think he thought he was being romantic."

"Are you sure it was from Lenny?"

"Yeah. It was waiting for me when I got home. Who else would leave a note like that for me?"

I didn't have the heart to tell her that it might not have been for her and, unlike the potential of it being from Lenny, it might not have been for romantic reasons.

"Let me know if you receive any more."

"You'll be the first to know", she said. After a moment of silence, she said, "I'll sort this problem out with Shania."

"You stay away from Shania, Mary Lou. You've created enough of a problem there."

"Don't tell me that you've never made a mistake like that."

"Of course I've made mistakes, but they haven't been as bad as shooting a toddler in the face with pepper spray. Children need to be protected and cherished, no matter who their parents are."

"Okay, I get it. I fucked up."

"Many of our skips are gentle people. They just forgot their court date, and are willing to go back into the system to get rescheduled. They shouldn't be treated poorly."

"How do you know that Shania was one of those?"

"Instinct. I don't think she will be now though."

"Okay. Look, I have to go. Lenny is making hamburgers for the kids for dinner tonight, and I want to make sure that he cooked the patties for them. Sometimes he forgets things like eating when he's been drinking."

"Have a good night." I hung up the phone and burrowed into Ranger's side.

"You okay, babe?" he said.

"Yeah. I was just wondering how we'd moved so far apart. I knew that Mary Lou was always a bit self-centered, but she was a good friend. I had always suspected that she got married more because I was getting married than because she had found her soul mate. I had hoped that she was happy, and I had thought that she had been. Now I'm not so sure. I wish her well, but I didn't know that Mary Lou resented me and where I was in my life."

"It sounds to me like she is bored and is looking for something different. She is questioning her role in life and her role in the marriage and, if Lenny isn't going near her sexually, she is questioning it even more. She is attracted to your life because it is so definitively different."

"I know. She's only looking at the excitement factor though", I said. "She's not looking at all the shit that goes with it. I don't mind those more negative aspects, but most people would find them impossible to take. It would be like me looking at her life and only seeing the cuddles with the kids after they'd been in the bath. It wouldn't be taking into account all the snotty noses and spilled milk and runny diapers. Mary Lou can handle them with ease, but they would be too hard for me to endure. I'm much happier with a hamster as my only dependent."

There was a silence for a moment. "Lenny pursued you first?"

"Lenny has always been like a dog in heat and will chase anything in a skirt. Except for transvestites. I don't think that he's chased any of those." I smiled at the image of Lenny chasing Sally Sweet. Sally would clobber him. Although Sally liked dressing in drag, he didn't like people treating him as though he was a girl. He would flatten Lenny so fast that Lenny wouldn't know what had hit him.

"Lenny showed good taste when he chased you."

"He cornered me once and made a pass at me, and I sacked him and told him that if he tried again I would castrate him. He treated me with kid gloves afterwards and I ignored him. So he transferred his attentions to Mary Lou, and Mary Lou was thrilled that she had 'stolen' Lenny out from under my nose. She was so happy about it that I never told her the truth."

"Do you think Lenny misses her?"

"Lenny is the kind of husband that comes home from work, drops his dirty clothes on the floor in their bedroom and dresses in his pyjamas, grabs a beer and sits in front of the television until dinner is ready. He eats dinner with the family then sits in front of the television drinking again until it is bedtime. The next day he gets up and repeats. I can see why Mary Lou is frustrated with him."

"That would be hard to take. It's not like it's the fifties any longer, and that sort of relationship is no longer typical."

"Mary Lou thought she had a good marriage because Lenny goes out to work each day and brings home a paycheck. She has traditionally closed her eyes to his philandering. I'm not sure what has changed for her. As I said, I thought she was happy. It wouldn't be the sort of relationship that made me happy, but she's a different person than I am."

"Do you know of any relationships like that?"

"Val has a bit of that, but Albert is good at trying to help out as much as he can. He just bumbles around a bit when he's helping. Personally, if I was Val I'd feel like I was a single mother with four little kids and a full-grown kid to look after." Ranger laughed. "But at least he tries to help. My mother had a bit of that with my father. My father doesn't drink much, but when he was working he would get up, go to work, come home and putter around the house until dinner time, eat dinner, then watch television until bedtime. My mother's role was to keep the house clean, make meals, keep us kids from pestering Dad, and make sure that the television was free for him to watch whatever he wanted after dinner, whether that was a crime drama or, more commonly, a sports game. I don't know what sort of relationship my grandmother had with my grandfather. I was too young to assess it. But from what I can remember, my grandfather was a serious sort of person and my grandmother was a free spirit, and they both encouraged the other person to stretch their boundaries a bit."

"What kind of relationship do we have?"

"One that works for us."


	19. Chapter 19

The next day, when Ranger woke me up with a kiss, I was feeling pretty good. My eyes and sinuses were back to normal. I wasn't feeling off-balanced like I had been the day before. I smiled at Ranger and he kissed me on my nose. "Nice to see your eyes clear again", he said.

"I was thinking about Shania's arrest. I think, so that we don't cause her any unnecessary stress, we should get Rangeman to pick her up. She shouldn't be a hard capture, but you will probably have to wait for someone to come to look after her baby while she is taken in. She should be taken first thing in the morning, as well, so that she can be bonded out sooner and back home in time to make her baby her dinner." Ranger was looking at me with soft eyes, and I could see that he was thinking about smiling. "What?" I said.

"Only you would worry about a skip's daughter."

"Often, skips aren't bad people. They just, for whatever reason, have done bad things. Take Lula. She's a good person but was a former 'ho. She was a former felon that would probably still be plying her trade if she hadn't been assaulted so brutally by Ramirez."

"That's true. As someone who spent time in juvie as a teen, I know how easy it is to break the law and to turn to a life of crime. I also know how hard it is to pull back from that life. For me, it took my parents moving me to Florida to live with my uncle for me to straighten my life out. Other people don't have the support of their family the same way that I did."

"See? That's what I'm saying. I admire anyone that is able to pull themselves back from the mistakes they have made. It isn't easy."

"No, it isn't, but it is doable."

"Many of the skips that I pick up aren't bad people. Some are scary, but many of the skips are wanted for non-violent crimes. In some cases, they couldn't get to the courts for one reason or another, and they need support in getting to court. In some cases, they forgot their court date. There are all sorts of reasons that people don't go to court, and some of those reasons might be valid. I've even had people miss their court dates because they have found a job and are trying to turn their lives around, and are trying to earn back the money to pay for the items that they stole. That doesn't happen often, but it has happened more than once. I think all people who are being picked up – unless they prove otherwise – should be treated with respect. I don't know what those people have gone through and what happened in their lives for them to make the decisions that they have. If I had been in the same position as they had been in, I might have turned to a life of crime as well. I don't think it is our role to judge."

"And that's what makes you a great bounty hunter."

"That was one of the things that I was horrified about yesterday. Lula and I have found that people are more likely to cooperate with us when we treat them with respect. Mary Lou didn't treat Shania with respect. It wasn't right."

"You are right in that you don't know why people turn to a life of crime. I had to go through therapy when I was in juvie, and I learned a lot about myself. Jail isn't always a bad thing. I know that juvie, and my parents sending me down to Florida to live, really turned my life around."

"Did you get along with your uncle?"

"He's a good man who turned an angry person into someone who had some self-control. He would tell me that the past didn't matter. It was what I did with the present that made a difference."

"What does he do for a job?"

"He, like my brother-in-law Fernando, was a social worker. In fact, it was through my uncle that my sister Maria met her husband. Uncle Alejandro and my Aunt Tia have now both retired and spend a lot of their time travelling. They are enjoying their retirement, and it's nice to see. Uncle Alejandro has earned it."

"Are you close to your aunt and uncle?"

"When I was a teenager, my parents were running into problems in their restaurant. They didn't let us kids know that there were problems, but there was a group of gangbangers that were charging businesses protection money and, if the businesses didn't pay it, their business would be torched or trashed or blown up or otherwise harmed. My parents didn't pay it, and our family members were threatened and the restaurant was torched. My parents didn't pay much attention to us during that time since they were so worried about keeping us safe. The same thing was happening at school. A group of boys were threatening the rest of us and told us that, if we didn't pay them money, they would beat us up. I refused them money simply because I didn't have any, and I was afraid to go to my parents because they were so upset themselves. So instead of giving the boys money, I offered to steal something for them. It started out with a couple of convenience store robberies. The first time I stole from a convenience store, I thought I would pass out because I was so scared. However, I stole a few more times with other people. The gang then decided I was ready to steal something without others there. They set me up with a car. It was the car that I was arrested on and, when I went to court, I pled guilty. I was put in juvie for a while, but I also came clean and told my parents what had been happening. They told me what had been happening on their end and apologized for not being there for me. They were upset and blamed themselves, and I was upset and blamed myself. Their solution was to send me to Uncle Alejandro to give me a fresh start. Between juvie and the fresh start, I was able to turn my life around. I was lucky though, and had the family support and ability to start again. Not everyone is so lucky."

"Why did you join the army?"

"I think my parents' experience was part of it. When I was in my late teens, I decided that I wanted to be a cop. However, there was a hiring freeze on being a cop in the New Jersey area, and I never did like the climate much in Florida. So I thought that, if I did a few years in the army, I could use the experience to pad my resume and make it more likely for me to be accepted to police training. My uncle had been a Ranger, so when I joined the army I gravitated towards the Rangers as well – and I found a place where I could excel. I worked my way up, but being in the army wasn't my life's ambition. After a shit load of training and two tours, I retired. However, when I retired, they still weren't hiring police officers. I started doing bounty hunting and dreamed up the idea to start my own security company. The rest, as they say, is history."

"Have you always worked for Vinnie?"

"Vinnie and I go way back. When I first started doing bounty hunting, I worked for Vinnie and did most of his skip chasing. Tank and I worked together and we were good at it, but I didn't like the inconsistency in pay. If there weren't any skips, I didn't get paid, which meant that I couldn't pay Tank. I decided to open Rangeman to give me the consistent meat-and-potatoes money, and take on the high bonds to provide the extras and the savings needed to be successful at running the business. I had been saving as much money as I could and, when I decided to build my own office, my parents told me that they had put money aside to pay for my education – and then I chose not to go to college. They gave me that money they'd saved to put towards constructing this building instead. My uncle and aunt had never had children of their own, and they gave all of us kids money as well when we turned twenty-five. I had saved mine, and I put that towards the business as well. The business just took off, and I've found my fit and where I am to be in life."

"So when I started with Vinnie?"

"I was just starting my security company and was pulling back from doing all Vinnie's skips to only doing those that were for high bonds. I was also just starting my work as a trainer with the paramilitary group that I work secretly for, and I knew that I would be out of the area for weeks at a time. I just didn't have the time to perform the surveillance on the little bonds. I was pleased to train you because I knew that I wouldn't be leaving Vinnie in the lurch then."

"And I thought it was my cute little smile", I said with a grin.

Ranger looked at me, his eyes soft, a half smile on his lips. "That, too."

Ella came in the apartment and dropped off our breakfast, and wished us a good day as she left the apartment again.

"That's our cue", I said. I drained my coffee cup before Ranger helped me to my feet and walked with me into the kitchen.

"What made you become a lingerie buyer?" he asked as he poured us more coffee and fixed mine the way I liked it with cream.

"Being in the right place at the right time. I graduated in the top ninety-eight percentile from Douglass College and knew that I had to find something to do. I was going out with Dickie and he was still in law school, but I knew that he wouldn't be earning much money at first. My parents were pushing me to marry him. I wasn't sure if I wanted to have children but I knew, for sure, that I didn't want them right away. However, the idea that I would stay at home and look after the house was appalling to me. I clean my house because I have to, not because I want to. I don't like to cook and I prefer to take my clothes back to my parents' to be washed rather than do it myself. So I decided to get a job. Then I tried to figure out what I'd like to do. I was looking through the classifieds and found a job as a lingerie buyer and I thought, hell yeah, I liked wearing nice lingerie. I applied partly because I thought that I'd get samples to wear and an employee discount. But I wasn't allowed to wear the samples and there was no employee discount. I toughed it out for a few years before the office became computerized and my job became redundant. I wasn't totally unhappy about it. While the pay was good for someone who had barely passed college, people got the wrong impression when I told them I was a lingerie buyer." Ranger laughed. "At first, it was nice not to have a job. To be able to get up and put on jeans instead of a suit seemed like heaven. But then, after a while, not bringing in a salary sucked. I was literally on my last legs and facing having to file for bankruptcy if Vinnie hadn't given me the job when he did." I put the plates of French toast on the table, and the bowl of fresh berries that Ella had prepared for spooning on top. It wasn't the pitcher of maple syrup and mound of whipped cream that I personally would have chosen, but because Ella had made it I knew it would be good.

"Vinnie is a bit of a weasel," said Ranger, "but he has a good heart and he takes people under his wing and gives them a chance. He did it with you, he did it with Lula, and he did it with me. He excels at reading people and can tell if someone would be a good person to hire."

"Yeah, Connie and Lula and I say a lot against him, but we'd be the first people to protect him if it was needed."

"What do you have up for today?" Ranger sat down at his breakfast and waited until I had sat down as well before he started to eat.

I took a bite. I was right. Ella had struck again. The French toast was so good with the berries that I almost didn't notice the lack of syrup and whipped cream. Almost.

"I have three outstanding skips for Vinnie, two of which need researching that I am planning on doing from my office here. I also have a pile of files to research for Rangeman. I was planning on working in the office this morning and chasing skips with Lula this afternoon."

"I'm available for lunch today if you are interested. Just come to my office at noon."

"Sounds like a date."

"If you have time, I'm available for training this afternoon at four-thirty."

"I'll let you know closer to four-thirty if I can make it. Is that okay with you?"

"Absolutely. We just haven't trained for a few days, and you're doing so well in your training that I don't want you to lose momentum."

"You always say that."

"And I'm always right."

"What do you have on today?"

"Now that the Beiterman account is ours, I have some set up of the account to do. I'll have a lot of research for you to do in another couple of days. The Beiterman factory employs three hundred employees, and each of those employees will need to be checked. Their previous security company had greenlighted everyone but had also greenlighted a few people that turned out to be involved in an embezzlement scheme. We have to go back to the beginning and make sure that all employees are safe for the company to employ. It's a huge account to get started."

"Will it be a time-consuming account once the initial work is done?"

"Not especially so. The company doesn't have much turnover of staff, and we aren't providing security guard services. It will be a fairly straightforward account. They were pleased, as they said the system we were recommending was far more comprehensive but was also far less expensive than their previous provider, despite the enhanced services we offer. They said that they wished they had asked us for a quote the first time around."

"That must have been gratifying for you to hear."

"It was nice. Although earning money is important to me, helping people is equally as important. Knowing that I am providing a good service at a fair cost is part of that."


	20. Chapter 20

Lula sent me the files that I needed to research and, because I hadn't been in my office since Sunday, there was a pile of research requests waiting for me. I did the files for Vinnie first as I texted Lula and told her to expect me after lunch. After printing off the computer reports for Vinnie's files, I put in the parameters for the Operations files that I had to research. The files were for Tank and were for potential new employees for an existing corporate client. While the computer chugged through the creation of a report, I quickly reviewed the information on the two files for Vinnie and came up with a capture plan.

I looked at the time. It was still early and before standard office hours, and the patrol guys would soon be starting their shifts. I walked my Right to Apprehend papers down to Ranger and popped my head into his office. He looked up from his computer with a smile on his face. "Babe?" he said.

"I was wondering whether two of the Merry Men could pick up Shania Boone today?"

"The Merry Men?"

I could feel myself flush. "That's what Lula and I call your staff."

"Who am I then?"

"Robin Hood, of course."

"And Tank?"

"Little John."

Ranger laughed. "I'll get a team doing that this morning", he said. "I'm assuming just after school starts is the best time to pick her up?"

"Yes. She has a kid in kindergarten as well as a toddler."

"Okay. We'll take care of it."

"Thanks." I handed over the apprehension papers, gave Ranger a kiss, and left his office for Tank's. He was behind his desk working on his computer, and looked up with a smile. "Here are your files", I said.

"Which ones are those?"

"The two employees for Tosture."

"What did you find out?"

"One is perfectly clean. No speeding tickets, no interaction with the police, no neighborly complaints, great work history, great credit rating. The other is a bit murkier. A few speeding tickets, a failure to pay child support, a spotty work history, and what appears to be some lying or, if not lying, some massaging of facts regarding his past experiences. Nothing that screams 'don't hire', but nothing that says that the man is lily white either."

"The first one – do you think it's a true history? Few people are so clean."

"Honestly? It concerns me."

"Why?"

"It seems too clean. I've searched everywhere, and the history seems too pat. Something is telling me there is something more going on than I'm finding in my research. Call it instinct, but I keep thinking assumed identity."

"Okay, thanks. I'll look at it. If you think the identity is too slick, it probably is. Your instincts have always been good."

"Thanks, Tank."

"I heard you got pepper sprayed yesterday."

"It wasn't my finest moment. Ranger had to come and rescue me again."

Tank smiled. "You're cute. He doesn't mind."

"I don't know how cute I was with snot and mascara running down my face."

Tank laughed. "You looked okay, Steph. I saw you on the feed." I looked at him askance and he laughed again. "Well, at least you bought the waterproof kind of mascara. You may have been crying and swollen, but you didn't have raccoon eyes."

"Thank heaven for small mercies. Can I get you a coffee? I'm going."

"Thanks, but I just got one."

I smiled at him and walked down to the break room, and helped myself to some caffeinated energy and searched through the basket of granola bars. There weren't any of the good kinds with chocolate chips or with a chocolate covering and I sighed. However, I was able to find one that had peanuts in it, and I snatched it up before another teammate stole it from under me. There was only one granola bar there like it. The rest all were birdseed bars.

I walked back to my office and finished the rest of the Operations files in time for lunch. Before going to the break room, I popped my head into Ranger's office. "Have you already retrieved your lunch?" I said. My text message buzzed, and I pulled out my phone to look at it as Ranger walked around his desk to join me. My forehead wrinkled.

"Babe?" said Ranger.

"I just got a weird message from Mary Lou. Apparently she got a message shoved under her door last night. She found it this morning. It said, "I saw you yesterday. You were looking good. Your new look is much more suited to my plans for you. I'm coming soon for you. Be ready." Mary Lou thought that the message was from Lenny and was happy that he was expressing an interest in her, especially considering yesterday she was dressed like a dominatrix. She called him to thank him for the note, however, and Lenny said that he didn't leave it for her. He said that he also didn't leave the 'you're mine' message yesterday."

"Who do you think left it?"

"I don't know, but if you were far away from Mary Lou, she looks a little like me. She's about the same height, just one size of clothes larger, and her hair is the same color and about the same length. Yesterday, she was wearing it teased out in curls, and if I had teased my hair it would have looked the same as hers did. When we were in school, people got us mixed up all the time."

"So this could be a mistaken identity?"

"That's what I'm thinking."

"So the question is: who is interested in you."

"I don't know."

"Who do you have in your list of skips?"

"Romeo, who we caught on Saturday and who has been bonded out again. Shania, but she doesn't know me and didn't know that I was looking for her until we showed up at her apartment yesterday. She wouldn't have had time to be able to make it to my apartment before Mary Lou got back. Another three felons who don't know yet that I'm searching for them."

"What about Kanye? He's the one that you've come into contact with recently who would have a vendetta against you."

"Just because I don't want to be a 'ho?"

"Just because I beat him up so thoroughly. He has to save face now." I looked at him, and Ranger looked upset.

"This isn't your fault", I said gently. "Kanye, if he is the perpetrator, is acting out of his own initiative. This isn't because of anything you did or didn't do."

Ranger didn't look like he believed me. "Let's get our lunches and call Morelli", he said.

"Isn't calling him a little reactionary to what essentially is just a couple of notes?"

"I don't have a good feeling about this, babe."

I sighed.

We walked down to the break room. I chose a bowl of potato chowder, some crackers and a container of fruit salad. I had considered having a tossed salad instead of the fruit salad, but the dressings that were provided were all low-fat and really, who wants to eat that low-fat, high acid, fake-taste crap? Ranger took a tuna salad sandwich and a tossed salad with a low fat Italian dressing. Apparently he had a different view on the low-fat dressings than I did.

We walked back to his office and sat down to eat. "How else was your day?" asked Ranger.

"The usual", I said. "I'm through all of Operations' research requests and now just have Sales' requests. I have about seven of them, so I might work after hours this evening to try to get them cleaned up, if that's okay with you. With the Beiterman research needing to be done soon, I want to be caught up so that I have a chunk of time available to work on the account."

"I'd like to work this evening as well. I'm a little behind in my own work. With getting the Beiterman account ready to present, I've been letting my other work lag."

"But I thought you said you'd have time to train me this afternoon."

Ranger lips quirked up in a half smile. "I'll always make time for you, babe. Besides, any opportunity that I have to get all hot and sweaty grappling with you is a good time in my books. And I'm always up for a good time."

I looked at him and smiled slightly. "Good to know", I said.

Ranger finished his salad and opened up his sandwich. As he took a bite, he said, "are you ready to phone Morelli?"

I sighed and nodded.

Ranger picked up his phone and called Joe. "I don't have an answer for you yet", said Joe, "but the file you sent me is very interesting."

"That actually isn't why I'm calling. Stephanie is here, and apparently Mary Lou has received a couple of anonymous letters that are worrisome."

"What do they say?"

"The first says 'you're mine'", I said. "The second says that he or she saw Mary Lou and thought she was more accurately dressed for what he had envisioned. She had been wearing leather pants and a leather studded bustier. Lula said that she wanted to know where Mary Lou had bought her clothes because she had a few friends who were still in the business who would be interested in shopping at the same stores."

"I'll visit Mary Lou this afternoon to see the notes. You did tell her not to throw them out, didn't you?"

"I didn't, but I will now." I picked up my phone and texted Mary Lou, told her that Morelli was coming, and asked her not to throw out the notes. I got a return text saying that they were on the counter but that she wasn't at home. Lenny thought it was hot that she had been dressed in leather and working as a bounty hunter, and he'd wanted her to wear her leather and come home for some fun while the kids were at school. I wished her luck, told her that Morelli still had a key and would retrieve them from her counter, and passed on the message to Morelli.

"It's a good thing that I still have a key."

"It's important to me that you have a key, Joe", I said. "You are still a good friend of mine."

"Just so that you know, the rumor floating around the town now is that Terry and I are getting married."

I could feel my face pale. Ranger looked at me and pulled me onto his lap for a cuddle. "Are you?" he asked.

"Not in the slightest. It has to do with a case that I'm working on. I was wondering, Ranger, whether I could use your help and get you to run a few names through your databases. There are a couple of guys that I really want to find something that I can hang an arrest on. Although they would be good to get off the streets, they are like plastic and I can't get anything to stick to them."

"No problem. If you email me the names I'll run the searches this afternoon and send you the reports this evening."

"Thank you."

"What are the files on?" I asked.

"No", said Morelli. "I want to keep you as far away from this as possible."

I mustn't have looked pleased, because Ranger smiled slightly. "Stephanie is pouting."

"That's just too bloody bad. She's not to be a part of this."

"Okay", said Ranger. "We can do that. Can Tank be involved?"

"Yes. Like you, he can take care of himself."

"Okay."

"I can take care of myself", I said.

"Cupcake, in the last three days you've propositioned, kidnapped and pepper sprayed. Even more dangerous, you had dinner with both Lenny and again with your parents. Do me a favor and let Ranger and me deal with this case."

I huffed out a breath of frustration and Ranger rubbed my back. "You're going to the bonds office this afternoon anyway", he said. "You don't have time to do the research."

"Neither do you."

"My time is more flexible than yours. Don't worry about me." He turned to the phone. "Send those names to my personal account, Morelli. I'll search them this afternoon."

"Thank you. I'll talk to Mary Lou and get back to the two of you later today. Cupcake? Take it easy when you are out of the office today. I don't have a good feeling about things."

"Neither do I", said Ranger.

I didn't want to say it, but I didn't either.


	21. Chapter 21

Connie was out of the office bonding out Shania again when I got there, and I was glad to know that she'd be home in time to pick up her child from school. However, Lula was there. When I joined her in the bonds office, she was in one of her two most common positions – playing Solitaire on the computer. Her other favorite position was sleeping on the sofa, but because she would have just woken from her mid-morning nap, she wouldn't have been tired. Of course, that hadn't stopped her in the past.

"Are you ready to go huntin'?" said. Lula

"Wabbits?" I said with a smile. "I could do with some rabbit stew."

Lula gasped and turned to me in shock. "You actually eat rabbit? Poor, fluffy, defenseless bunnies? Like the Easter Bunny? The Easter Bunny brings chocolate. Bunnies are good."

I laughed. "True. To tell you the truth, I've never cared for rabbit stew. I just said that to see what you'd say. It always seemed like murder to me to kill a bunny for food. More so than with a cow or a pig or a chicken or turkey. I don't know why that is, since bunnies are probably better to eat than something like a cow. More food per bone mass, less impact on the environment, and they procreate like crazy. However, there is something that seems inherently wrong with killing little fluffy bunnies."

"I know", said Lula. "When I see a little bunny, all I want to do is pick them up and cuddle them, and maybe squeeze them to see if chocolate pooped out."

"I don't think chocolate poops out."

"How does the Easter Bunny get all that chocolate get to all those houses then? Santa Claus carries a magical sack with him. The Easter Bunny don't carry no sack. How else would he get the chocolate to all the different houses? He has to poop it out."

Euww. I might never eat Easter chocolate again, and that was a shame since Easter was one of my favorite times of the year.

"I don't know how you can say that you value rabbits", I said. "You carry your lucky rabbit's foot on your keychain."

"Yeah, but that's not a real rabbit's foot. That's just a piece of fake fur that's been imbibed with magic."

"Uh-hunh. How does it get imbibed with magic?"

"An old witch says magic words over the fake foot when it's in the factory."

"Uh-hunh. If you say so."

"You can tell that it's fake because it's a bright pink in color. Have you ever seen a pink rabbit? No, you haven't. See? It's a fake foot." She took it out of her purse to show me the color.

"Sure. They didn't dye it at the plant?"

Lula looked at the foot. She inspected it for a moment, then cried out and threw the keychain across the room. The keys hit the wall and slid to the floor. "Get it away from me!" she said. She shuddered and ran to the bathroom and washed her hands. When she returned, she said, "that's gross. I've been carrying around a piece of real rabbit. There's a poor defenseless bunny out there with only three feet, and it's all because of me."

"I think the bunny is dead."

"Oh, God! That's even worse! I killed a bunny. I can't touch my keychain any longer."

"You need your keys to drive your car."

"You can drive me home."

"You need your keys to open your house."

"I can live in your apartment."

"Mary Lou is staying there."

"Hunh. I don't want to stay with that bitch. She might pepper spray me in my sleep."

"Why don't I take off the rabbit's foot and then you have your keys back."

Lula thought about that for a moment. "Okay, as long as you don't mind holding a piece of an animal. Hell, I won't even wear real fur. That's disgustin'."

I crossed the room and picked up the keychain, and removed the rabbit's foot. I handed the keys back to Lula and she gingerly took the keys from my hand. I threw the rabbit's foot in the garbage. "Better?" I said.

"Yeah, but now we don't have the luck associated with the rabbit's foot."

"Was it particularly lucky?"

"You haven't blown up a car lately, have you?"

"No, but it was hit by Bucky's bullets last week."

"Yeah, but that was just a little bullet. He didn't incapacitate the car. As far as your cars go, it didn't even register. I mean, it didn't even count in our pool." The bonds office, copying Rangeman and the police, had started a pool for when my car would be next incapacitated. In the last year, there had been five winners. Rangeman had started a similar pool for the length of time between my carjackings. There had been nine winners in that pool, and the only reason that there weren't more was because it only started six months ago.

I shook my head. "So, should we take the Explorer when we go out skip chasing today?"

"Yeah. We don't have my lucky rabbit's foot now, so we aren't going to have good karma today. I see a car getting jacked in our future."

"Okay", I said. I hoped that we didn't have a carjacking. Tank had said that morning that he had another day to go before he won the pool for carjackings, and he had asked me to take it easy today. I had promised I would. "We have the one old file of the guy that broke into the junkyard, got stuck on the fence on the way out, was freed from the fence and decided to do it all again, including the part where he got stuck on the fence. He doesn't sound too smart and should be easy for us to capture him."

"Okay, let's clean up the oldest ones first. Dumbest is even better. I need a cash infusion. My Amex bill needs to be paid, and I bought a new handbag when I was out on the weekend. It was a good deal. It was a real knock off Gucci bag. I needed it."

"Why did you need it?"

"I just did."

"Un-hunh. Well, I love old and dumb as well."

"I won't tell Ranger that you said that. After all, he's not too much older than you, is he?"

"No, he's the same age. Where I was born in October, though, he was born in the middle of May."

"Did you celebrate his birthday with him this year? If his birthday is in the middle of May, you would probably have been living with him at the time. You would still have been going out with Morelli, but you would have been living with Ranger."

"That's true."

"Please tell me he had a birthday cake, because that would be real disappointin' to find out that he didn't have a birthday cake."

"He had a birthday cake."

"Whew! Not having a birthday cake would be unnatural. After all, you only get birthday wishes once a year, and you have to make the most of them. How did you celebrate his birthday with him?"

I blushed as I remembered exactly how we spent his birthday night.

"Yeah, baby. That was one of those times where you were smiling the next day?" Lula believed that, if I had great sex the night before, I was smiley the next day but, if I didn't have sex, I was a cranky-pants. I hadn't been a cranky-pants since I had decided to get serious about Ranger. Of course, I wasn't much of a cranky-pants when I was going out with Morelli either.

"Since that was the day I shot Brodie, I wasn't exactly smiling. I did, however, wake up feeling pretty good about things."

"That was the day you broke up with Morelli. It must have been good with Ranger. Wait, don't tell me. I don't want to know if his wanger is an early wilter." She paused. "No, I lied. I do want to know."

I laughed and shook my head.

"So how did you justify to yourself that it was okay to have sex even if you were going out with Morelli? You were always so careful about not crossing the line. Your Catholic guilt gave you the morals of a saint. I don't personally have that problem myself."

"Apparently that guilt wasn't strong enough. But I didn't think my straying counted. It was birthday sex, and birthday sex never counts."

"That's true."

"After all, I didn't know that it was his birthday and I had to do something to help him celebrate."

"That's true. How did you find out that it was his birthday?"

"Ella sent up a cake for dessert."

"Was it the day old 'happy birthday Larry' cake?"

"Nope. Larry didn't have to go without a cake. Ella made Ranger a cake from scratch especially for him."

"Wow. I could use an Ella in my life. I'd like a homemade cake as well. Was it good?"

"I had two pieces."

"This is making me hungry. I wonder what the Tasty Pastry has in their day-old selection."

"I'm hungry for cake as well", I said.

"We do have to do surveillance."

"And we always like having a little something to eat for surveillance."

"I just had one foot-long sub for lunch today", said Lula.

"I had fruit salad."

"That's all you had?"

"Well, no, but what I had with it was potato chowder, and since it was made with vegetables it shouldn't count."

"Hunh. You need some happy food."

"I'm not unhappy."

"You will be if you don't have any cake to eat."

I paused. Lula had a point. I was now in the mood for cake. I could only hope that they had a chocolate one in the fridge. I could really go for chocolate cake.

I went to our supply cabinet and took out a couple of leftover plastic forks. It paid to be prepared. I turned to Lula. "Let's roll."


	22. Chapter 22

Lula and I sat in the Burg on a street very close to my parents' with a chocolate sheet cake between us. We had decimated half of it and, although my stomach was starting to rebel, Lula was still going strong.

"Aren't you going to eat any more of this here cake?" she said as she forked another mouthful into her mouth.

"No. You have the rest. I think I filled up too much on the fruit salad."

"Your loss", said Lula as she ate another bite. "This is a great cake. It isn't even too stale."

"I know. That icing is particularly good at keeping the cake fresh."

"I was thinking that maybe we don't need the lucky rabbit's foot."

"Of course we don't." I looked up and saw Peter Wendall parking his car and walking up to the house. "That's him", I said. "Let's go."

Lula and I got out of the car and followed Peter to the house. He shut the door just before we walked up the driveway, and we could see the curtains twitch as we approached. I knocked on the door.

"With your utility belt, you look like you're serious at this stuff", said Lula. In the past, I had often done captures naked. Well, not literally naked, but I had done them without wearing a gun and cuffs and pepper spray or wearing Kevlar. However, Ranger got a little testy when I ran into problems and hadn't been properly dressed for the takedown. So I started wearing my utility belt and, after Ranger had bought me a custom-fitted bulletproof vest that didn't squish my girls the way that the off-the-shelf Kevlar did, I've been wearing the bulletproof vest as well. It made him happy, and I had to admit that it had saved me a few times. Privately, it did make me feel a bit more confident when I was doing a takedown, and Lula was happy because I was finally wearing a gun. Carrying a gun made my stomach feel squishy though, so I didn't put bullets in. I never told Lula that. For that matter, I never told Ranger either. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them, could it?

I had bought a bulletproof vest for Lula for her birthday. It had arrived just a week before, and I was looking forward to giving it to her. Ranger had bought her a utility belt in her size, and the two presents I thought would be her favorite presents of all time. It was her birthday in another two weeks, and I could hardly wait.

Lula was turning thirty, so I had special ordered a chocolate cake from the Tasty Pastry, and Vinnie, Connie, Ranger and I were planning on holding a surprise party for her in the bonds office. We had invited some of our regular felons, some of the regulars from Rangeman, my mom and grandmother, and Shirleen, Lula's close friend. We wanted to make it nice for Lula. After all, it wasn't every day that you turned thirty. I didn't think that she'd ever had a party in her honor before, and I knew it would mean a lot to her.

Lula would just appreciate the fact that the cake wasn't a day old. I didn't know if she had ever had a cake that was made fresh just for her. I had asked for Marianne to add lots of icing flowers. I thought Lula would like it. I know that, when we bought a day old cake, we always fought for who was allowed to eat the flowers, and frequently we ended up dividing them in half. But as Lula often said, half a flower wasn't nearly as satisfying as a whole flower.

Peter didn't answer when I knocked, so I rang the doorbell a few times. Lula left the porch and looked in the windows, and saw a man sneaking out the back door. "We have a runner", she said, and she took off through the back yard.

I ran in the direction that she was running in, and passed her about ten steps into the run. She was huffing like a freight train and I wasn't much better. Peter vaulted up onto the fence but, as he tried to get over to the other side, his pant leg caught on the wood. His momentum carried him over and he dangled, on the other side, upside down in the neighbor's backyard.

Lula came lumbering up as I stood there, hands on hips, staring at Peter through the slats of the fence as Peter frantically worked at his belt to try to take his pants off. "I'm going around the other side", I said to Lula. "Shoot him if he tries to escape."

Lula took my position looking through the slats and smiled as Peter stopped trying to unbuckle his belt. I went out to the street and got my car, and soon arrived at the neighbor's house. I walked back into the yard and saw Peter dangling from his pant leg. The material, stretched to the max, made a giant ripping sound and Peter fell to the ground. "Ow", he said. He sat up rubbing his head. "I didn't mean to do that", he yelled to Lula. "You don't need to shoot me."

"Bond enforcement", I said. I walked up to him and cuffed him behind his back, and then pulled him into a standing position. "We'll come around and pick you up, Lula", I said. I heard a dog barking in the house and turned to see a big dog jumping up and down against the glass of the back door, and quickly led Peter out of the backyard as the neighbor came to the door to let out the dog. I shut the gate on the yard just as the dog came tearing out and around the corner, growling and snapping, and breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut securely. I heard the dog jump repeatedly up against the fence and breathed another sigh of relief when the lock on the gate held.

I started to walk quickly to the car and I had just put Peter's seatbelt on when the dog broke the fence down. He raced out of the yard and headed straight for the Explorer. I jumped in the car and shut the door as the dog arrived, and he jumped up on the car as I started it. I drove around the block as the dog chased, and I swore that I could see foam coming out of its mouth. I put some speed on and left the dog behind, pulled up at Peter's house, and saw Lula ambling out of Peter's backyard. I put the window down and yelled, "hurry!"

"What?" she said.

"Hurry! Dog!"

Lula looked behind the car and saw the dog pounding up, foam flying, teeth gnashing. "Dog!" she yelled, and she ran for the car. She jumped in as the dog reached the car and snapped its jaws. I took my foot off the brake and was driving away before Lula was fully into the vehicle, and as I drove she slammed the door and put her seatbelt on. "Holy crap! I was almost a Lula-snack. Did you see the size of his teeth? He wanted to eat me. You could see it in his eyes. He was a vicious dog. He was the kind of dog that needed to be put down. Why didn't you take your gun and shoot him, Steph?"

"I thought you didn't like me shooting animals."

"Yeah, but that wasn't just any animal. That was a snarling, vicious animal. That was an animal that wanted to eat me for dinner. That was an animal that wanted me to join my poor, fluffy bunny as someone without a leg." She paused for a breath. "I knew throwing away my lucky rabbit's foot would be a bad thing for us."

"That was just Snuggles. He may be a Doberman, but he really is gentle", said Peter.

"Hunh. He don't look so gentle to me", said Lula. "He looked like a menace to society. The only reason a dog should react like that would be for it to be protecting its property."

"It was protecting its property", I said. "We were in its backyard."

"Hunh", said Lula. "Stupid, fucking dog."

"Is that birthday cake?" asked Peter.

"Yes, but it's my birthday cake", said Lula. She picked up the box and hugged it to her chest. She took a big bite of the chocolate icing. "And it's damn good birthday cake."

"It looks like it's from the Tasty Pastry", said Peter. "They have the best cakes. I would really like a bit of their cake."

"Too bad", said Lula. "Their cake has special stress-relieving qualities, and I need some stress relief right now." She took another bite of the chocolate cake.

"I could use some stress relief", said Peter.

"Too fucking bad", said Lula. We pulled up to the bonds office and Lula got out. She took the cake with her. As she walked, I could see her take another bite.

"That was real rude of her to not share her cake", said Peter.

"It's been that sort of day for her", I said. I didn't know what else to say.

I drove to the precinct. As I pulled in and unloaded Peter, Morelli came up to me from the parking lot and gave me a kiss. "I got the notes from your place", he said. "I agree with Ranger. I don't like it."

"Damn", I said. "I was hoping you'd think they were unimportant."

"Something about this seems off. There was an additional note that was under the door when I arrived. It said that you'd earn him lots of money."

"That definitely sounds like Kanye. He seemed to think that I would earn him a lot of money when he was trying to get me to work for him."

"I want you to stay far away from him."

"I know. I don't intend on going into his neighborhood. But you may, if you want to catch him, need to have me act as bait to flush him out."

"No. Absolutely not. I'm not taking chances with your life like that, cupcake. You're too important to me."

"Think about it, okay? If it's our only option, I don't mind doing that – as long as I have great backup, it shouldn't be dangerous."

"No. I have found with you that, no matter how much backup you have, you are never truly safe. Something always happens to you. If there is doggie doo-doo, you are always the person who lands in it."

I glared at him and Joe smiled. "That only happened once", I said under my breath as he gave me a kiss and strode into the bullpen. I led Peter into the station, cuffed him on the bench, and went to the docket officer to get my paperwork signed. Minutes later, I strode out to the car and got in as I heard a dog run up to me. Its tongue was protruding, foam was dripping and teeth were trying to chomp down on my leg. I slammed the door shut and shoved the key in the ignition. Snuggles was jumping up so that I could see his face rhythmically popping up and down to my left, and as my heart stuttered in fear I wondered how I'd ever be able to find the courage to act as bait for Kanye.

I called Animal Control to report the lost dog, and waited half an hour until they had sent out the bylaw officers to capture the animal. As they took the dog away, I motored back to the bonds office to hand in my body receipt and pick up my check.

When I got there, Lula wasn't there. "Where did Lula go?" I asked.

"She said she'd see you tomorrow. She said that, now that she didn't have her lucky rabbit's foot, she would need to find another lucky charm, and that the lack of lucky charm almost killed her today. She took her chocolate cake and left the office and told me to wish her luck in finding another one as powerful as her rabbit's foot."

"I should probably go back and work at Rangeman again anyway", I said. I glanced at the time. I'd make it back to the office in time to train with Ranger.

Oh goody.

"See you tomorrow?" said Connie.

"We only have two outstanding skips. Tell Lula, if she calls in, that I'll see her around nine. There is one skip in particular that I want to capture in the morning. The other skip is someone that goes to school and I'd like to capture her in the afternoon."

"I'll let her know."

I walked out to the car and looked at the driver's door. Snuggles had scratched the car with her nails when she was jumping up and down, and there were several deep gouges in the paint. I sighed. I really didn't want to tell Ranger that his car needed bodywork done on it. Again. It wouldn't be the first time I'd had to tell Ranger that I had banged up one of his cars.

As I started it up, I thought about the upcoming training session with Ranger, which reminded me that I needed to put bullets in my gun. I took out the box of bullets and loaded up, and reholstered my gun. I put the box of bullets back in my purse and turned the car on. Then, ready for an afternoon of training, I drove to Rangeman to meet up with Ranger.


	23. Chapter 23

"Is your gun loaded?" asked Ranger as he met me in my office. I was locking my purse and utility belt away. I would only need my gun holster, and I had just finished strapping it on to my leg. I preferred the leg holster over the belt holster. I had found that, not only did the belt holster pull my pants down, it was harder for skips to take the gun out of the leg holster than it was for them to take it out of the belt holster. Of course, it was hardest for them to take it out of my purse, but that excuse didn't fly with Ranger. Something about it also being harder for me to get access to it as well. Go figure. I didn't know how to tell him that I wouldn't need to shoot the gun. I'd just need to swing my purse at the felon, and the weight of the gun in it would stop the felon from either attacking or running away. The weight of it could probably break bones, to be honest. But that statement didn't carry any more weight with Ranger than the statement that carrying it in my purse was a better idea than carrying it on my body. He just told me that the weight of it in my purse was another reason that it made more sense to carry it in a holster, and that he didn't want me to have back problems.

"Would I have an unloaded gun?"

Ranger smiled. "I saw you on the feed", he said.

I turned red. "At the bonds office?"

Ranger laughed. "I actually didn't, but it is nice to have my suspicions confirmed. You did go out with your gun empty, didn't you?"

"Guns are scary, and bad things happen when I have a gun in my hand."

"Babe."

"Seriously. I have killed three people. That isn't a good ratio considering I have only had a gun with me permanently for the last four months."

"You didn't kill those three people in the last four months though. You haven't killed anyone when you've been carrying your gun to takedowns."

"I know, but part of the reason that my gun hasn't been shot at anyone in the last four months is because it hasn't been loaded."

"Babe." He shook his head. Then, apparently deciding that he didn't need to say anything more, he said, "is your gun loaded now?"

I grimaced. "Of course."

Ranger smiled. "Let's go shoot something then."

As we walked out of the offices to the elevator, Ranger said, "tell me about your afternoon. Did you get anyone?"

"Yes." The gathering my courage, I said, "there's a small issue about the car." I paused and swallowed.

Ranger froze. "I'm listening."

"It has a little scratch on it."

"I don't care about a little scratch, babe."

"Then I might have lied a little. It has a big scratch in it." Ranger looked at me. "Okay, it has several big scratches on it. I'll pay to have the bodywork done on it." Unlike my cars, Ranger's cars are always clean and in pristine condition.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"That's all that matters. What happened?"

"I picked up the skip in his neighbor's yard as he was trying to escape. The neighbor's dog took offence that we were in his yard. The dog chased us all the way to the police station and, when it was time for me to come home, I got into the car just before the dog caught up to me. And as I waited in the car for it to leave, it jumped up on the car several times and scraped the paint."

"How did you get rid of the dog?"

"I phoned Animal Control."

"Why didn't you just shoot the thing?"

"I couldn't shoot a defenseless dog!"

Ramon walked off the elevator. "Were you driving one of the fleet cars, Steph? How did it get scraped up?"

"Dog", I said with a shiver.

Ramon smiled. "It must have been some dog. It can even spell."

"Pardon?"

"I could be wrong, but to me it says 'ho on the passenger side."

"The dog was attacking me on the driver's side."

"I'd look at the passenger side if I were you."

"I guess that's why I had a car full of teenaged males all waving and making kissy faces at me as I drove from the precinct to the bonds office, and another car full of senior men who did the same thing when I dove back here from the bonds office", I said. "The seniors got so excited I was worried about them having coronaries. I thought they had recognized me from Vinnie's advertisement."

"Let's go look", said Ranger. He didn't look happy, but I wasn't sure if it was Vinnie's ad campaign, the fact that I was getting attention, or whether it was because his car had offensive words scratched into it.

We took the elevator down to the parking garage and walked out to the Explorer. As we walked around it, we could see that 'ho was distinctly scratched into the paint. Ranger pulled out his phone. He snapped a few shots of the car and sent them to Morelli, then dialed his number. "Hey", he said, "I just sent pictures of the car that Steph is driving currently. She was tagged while she was in the police station today." He waited. "Yes", he said, "that's a good idea." He said goodbye and turned to me as he hung up. "Morelli will pull the tapes to see if he can see who's responsible." He walked around the other side and looked at the scratches left by the dog. "I think that dog needs his nails trimmed", he said finally after looking at the deep gouges. He had a tightness around his eyes and a tenseness in his body that screamed 'not happy'.

"There's always something good about everything", I said.

"What's that, babe?"

"Having the word 'ho scratched into the paint job makes the gouges left by the dog almost anticlimactic."

Ranger pulled me into a hug. "That dog could have mauled you and, seeing the damage that was done to the car, I know it would have if it had been given the chance." He kissed me on the top of my head. "The dog's scratches aren't anticlimactic." He gave me another kiss as he rubbed my back.

I cuddled in for a moment, only pulling apart when Lula called. "I had to get another lucky charm", she said. "Not having that rabbit's foot was bad for us. I thought I'd mess my pants when I saw that dog coming after me."

"That was okay. The dog caught up to me as well", I said, "and I didn't mess my pants but maybe I should have. It wrecked the paint job on Ranger's car." Ranger captured my hand and walked with me into the building and over to the shooting range. "I have to go", I said as the sound of a gun going off interfered with my phone conversation.

"Where are you?" said Lula. "Are you in danger? Should I call Ranger? Morelli? Oh, my God. Are you okay, Steph?"

"Relax", I said. "Ranger and I are at the gun range."

"Oh. That makes more sense. I think it's a good thing that he's teaching you how to fire a gun. I'm a good shot and don't need no lessons, but lessons would be good for you."

"Lula, you're a terrible shot. You couldn't hit a barn door at twenty paces if you tried."

"I'm a good shot. I just happen to buy guns that have the sights all screwed up on. I think my current gun was formerly used in the midway of a travelling fair. You know, one of the ones where they have a big stuffed panda on display and no matter how much money you spend buying chances to hit the target, you only win one of the cheap-assed lumpy stuffed fish. I mean, seriously, who wants a lumpy stuffed fish? It's not like the fabric is all furry or anything like that. It's not soft and it doesn't even look like a fish."

"Hunh. I always wondered what those things were supposed to be."

"I always thought it was a deformed fish, like the kind you find in the river near a nuclear facility."

"They don't have deformed fish near a nuclear facility", I said. I hoped.

"Sure, they do. I saw it on _The Simpsons_. You know they don't lie in those shows. They would get sued if they lied."

"Lula, I don't think animated shows should be where you get your information."

"Why not? That's how I recognized Ranger. He's definitely Batman, just like in the cartoons. The building he lives in is the Batcave. I bet it even looks like the Batcave inside, but I wouldn't know because someone – I'm not mentioning any names – hasn't invited me over."

I wasn't picking up that conversation. Lula frequently tried to get an invitation into Rangeman. However, letting Lula into the office would be like letting a fox in with the chickens. It would cause unmentionable grief and upset. Instead, I said, "his name isn't Bruce Wayne."

"That's what he tells you. He is probably Bruce Wayne in disguise. After all, it isn't like you've met his family, have you?"

"That's true", I said. I hadn't told her that I had met Ranger's family twice in the last three months. They were a loving and welcoming family, and I liked them very much. I hadn't wanted to let Lula know or she would be pumping me for information. Ranger wouldn't appreciate it. He was very quiet and protective of his family and wouldn't be happy sharing the sort of details that Lula would be interested in getting. "I have to go. Ranger has cued up a target for me."

"Okay. See you tomorrow at nine", she said. "We should do well. I bought a four-leaf shamrock plant, and I thought we could put it in our drink holder to bring us luck."

"Where will we put our drinks?"

There was a silence. "Perhaps I could just cut off a stalk and carry it in a baggie. It would still be lucky if it was carried in a baggie, wouldn't it?"

"I'm sure it would."

"Then you and me, tomorrow, with our four-leaf clover plant and wham! We'll get those suckers before they even know what hit them."

I laughed and said goodbye, and put on some hearing and eye protection, and walked into the firing range and prepared to shoot.

After shooting for about twenty minutes, my aim was getting sloppy and my arms were getting tired. Ranger brought up the target and looked at it. About thirty percent of the shots had made it into the black center. Another sixty percent of the shots made it on the outer rings, and ten percent of the shots made it outside the target. "The shots outside the target were all made on that last clip", he said. "You were getting tired, and that's why your shots weren't accurate. However, before that last clip you were doing very well and you should be proud of yourself."

"I wasn't doing well enough."

"Babe, you need to celebrate what you can do rather than think about what you can't. The shots that you got today you would never have been able to do four months ago. You have improved dramatically over very little time. I remember the first time I ever took you to a gun range, and you shot a lot of bullets around the target, some onto my target next to yours, and only one on the 'person' that you were trying to hit – and that shot was at the person's ear and was a total fluke. You are an infinitely better shot now, and you should be proud of that." We put our safety gear up on the shelf and walked out of the range. Ranger put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. He kissed me on my temple. "Are you going to take me down today?" He smiled. "That's something else that you've improved dramatically. You are in much better condition than you were four months ago. You have learned quite a bit of self-defense and it would be much harder to hurt you now."

"I still get quite frustrated when I can't take you down."

"And I can tell when your competitiveness takes over and you no longer are thinking your way through the fight. Your fighting gets sloppy and you strike out blindly in the hopes of connecting."

"I'd love to win just once."

Ranger smiled. "You have to remember, I learned how to fight when I was a scrappy youth, channeled that ability to fight when I was in the army, and now periodically teach people self-defense."

"You are offering self-defense classes to all staff now, aren't you?"

"Yes. I have an instructor coming in twice a week in the morning, and another two times a week in the evening. I am now requiring all staff to go to at least one of the sessions each week, even the sales and support staff. You have a pass because you are getting private lessons. I haven't had to take over for the instructor often, but I have been known to teach the class at times."

"You're a good teacher."

"Thanks. I actually like teaching. I like seeing people improve and being able to share my knowledge with them. I like being a security expert more, but I do like teaching as well."

The elevator came, and Hal got onto the elevator to go up to the control room. "Coming off patrol?" I said. I liked Hal. Although he was large and intimidating in size, he was such a sweetie and always had a smile on his face that it was hard to be scared of him. He reminded me of a very fit and very large polar bear – cuddly and big.

"Yup. It was pretty quiet today. I noticed your car, Steph. That isn't going to count for the pool, you know, and I'm disappointed because I had predicted that this was the day that the car would be decimated. You aren't planning on going out again tonight, are you?" He looked hopeful.

I shook my head.

"Damn. I guess I'll go pick another day", he said.

"Pick it for a while in the future", I said. "Lula bought a four-leaf clover plant today, and she believes we'll have good luck following us – or at least we will until the plant dies."

"If your good luck plant dies, is that really good luck?" said Ranger.

I laughed as the doors opened and Ranger and I got off the elevator at the floor that contained the gym. When we got to the room, staff working out on the machines took one look at me and all left the area. Ranger had closed the gym to people working out between four-thirty and six in the afternoon so that it would be free for me to work out without people watching me. After the first few times of trying to do the exercises with the men watching, Ranger decided it would be better for his blood pressure – and the safety of his staff – if he shut down the gym. His theory is that his staff would be so interested in what I was doing that they wouldn't be watching what they were doing and would hurt themselves. Since Ranger had now instigated cardio training, an activity that left me red-faced and sweating in places that shouldn't sweat, I was glad to not have an audience. It was bad enough that Ranger was watching me. There was nothing attractive in seeing me collapse after running on the treadmill for fifteen minutes.

Ranger locked the door and scrambled the feed as I took off my thigh holster and my shirt. I knew from experience that I would get hot when I was fighting with Ranger, and seeing me in my sports bra gave me a slight advantage over him. I could use all the advantages that I could get.

When I was ready, Ranger led me through a series of stretches, and then started me on another new move that I hadn't learned before. We did it several times in slow motion and then, when I could do the move with fluidity and smoothly, Ranger had me do the move in normal time. Just before we got to the freestyle fighting portion of our workout, Ranger got a call on his cell phone. He listened for a minute before telling the person on the phone to come to the gym. He hung up and unlocked the door, then started fighting with me. I was fighting hard and almost holding my own. I was able to get out of holds, but Ranger quickly got me back into another hold. I would get out of it again before he would capture me once more. I heard the door open and continued fighting for a several minutes more, but after about five more minutes Ranger let me go. "Good job", he said.

I was breathing hard as I turned to the newcomer. Morelli was leaning against the wall, and for once he looked like he had respect in his eyes. His eyes turned soft as he gave me the onceover and he smiled. "Looking good", he said, and I flushed as I realized that I was standing in my sports bra and I wasn't sure if he was talking about the fighting that I had done, or the fact that I wasn't wearing a shirt. "You fight like a she-cat. I'm surprised that your gym isn't overrun when Stephanie is in training."

"Fifteen minutes of cardio, babe", said Ranger. He turned to Morelli. "I shut my gym down for the hour and a half that Steph and I are in training."

"Is this the way Steph has always trained?" I could tell that Morelli was remembering the fact that Ranger had been training me in self-defense even while we'd been going out with each other.

"Yes", I said. "I get hot otherwise."

"By stripping down, you are ensuring that the men around you will get hot instead."

My mouth dropped open. "Is it my fault that men get a little excited about seeing a little boob? They are just lumps of fat."

"You have to be careful", he said. "Not all men are respectful. We already have one man who thinks you should be his hooker. You don't need to be giving anyone ideas. Inappropriate dress is an invitation to be abused."

I looked at Joe, furious that he would be blaming me for Kanye and his criminal intent. A well of anger washed over me. I shoved my shirt on over my head and picked up my gun. "Go to hell", I said.

Morelli looked at Ranger in surprise. "What did I say?"

I slammed out of the gym and ran up the steps, in my upset setting a new record and making it to the fifth floor before my legs turned rubbery. I left the staircase and went to my office, unlocked my door and opened my desk drawer. I retrieved my purse and relocked my door again, took the elevator up to the seventh floor, and went into Ranger's apartment. I slammed into the bathroom, stripped down, and adjusted the temperature of the water. I showered until I was lobster red and prune-y, and when I got out Ranger was waiting for me with a dry towel and his housecoat. "Babe?" he said quietly.

"I hate how Morelli makes me feel. He's a nice guy, but he always makes me feel defensive and as though he is blaming me for everything bad that happens in my life. I didn't ask to be targeted by Kanye. I didn't ask to be kidnapped by him. I didn't ask to be stalked by him. Yet, I think Morelli blames me. He shows up at a private training session and comments on the fact that I was wearing a sports bra. He's seen me in less. Anyone on a beach would see me in less. Yet he still thinks that it's okay to comment on the fact that I was wearing a sports bra while I was training with you. It's not fair."

Ranger dried my hair and then tenderly dried my body. "It's not fair, but some men look first at physical attributes before they look at anything else. And you are incredibly sexy. It's more than your body though. It's how you move and how you talk. It's your personality shining through, and men are attracted to that. Not all men are honorable. Those that are won't care what you wear. Yes, they will admire your body more when you wear tight or revealing things. That's the whole point to club wear. But they won't look on it as an invitation and will respect your person. Men that aren't honorable, however, won't respect you and your body. They'll look at skimpy clothing as an invitation for something that it wasn't an invitation to. That's one of the reasons I scramble the feed. Part of the reason is because people would be so excited about seeing you on the feed that I couldn't be certain the other channels would be monitored properly. The other reason is because not all of my staff are nice men. They are respectful of authority and they know that I won't take them poaching on my territory. But that doesn't mean that they won't treat you as a sex object rather than a person. I don't want to expose you to that. Morelli is an honorable man, but he still knows that dishonorable men exist and he wants to protect you from that."

"It's not my fault that I was targeted by Kanye. After all, the first time I met him I was wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and I threw up on him."

"I know it's not your fault. I don't think Morelli believes that it is. He's just cautioning you to be careful." He wrapped his housecoat around me and, as I smelled the comforting smell of Bulgari Green, I started to relax. "Come", said Ranger. "Let me give you a massage. Your muscles will tense up otherwise with not doing a warm down and a stretching session."

As I slid his housecoat off my body and eased down onto the bed, I smiled. I'd rather have a massage over stretching any day, and I wondered if I could talk Ranger into making it a regular practice.


	24. Chapter 24

Ranger and I both worked after dinner. Just as I was shutting down my computer and yawning, I got a call from Mary Lou. "Hello", I said, "you still aren't welcome to go out with me."

"Stephanie?" said Mary Lou. She was crying. "There's a man here who wants to see you."

"Pardon?" I finished logging off my computer and shut and locked my office door. I walked down to Ranger's office and let myself in. He looked up with a smile, took in my stressed face, and quickly shut his own computer down.

"Stephanie?" said the man as I put the phone on speakerphone. "I have your friend here. She's been telling me that she's been your friend for the last twenty-five years. If you want to see her alive, you'll exchange yourself for her. She has children. Your godchildren. Do you really want them to live without their momma?"

Ranger picked up his phone, typed in a message, waited a moment, then dialed Morelli. He put the phone near my phone so that Joe could hear the phone call.

"Who is this?"

"Kanye. How many other men do you have in your life?"

I shuddered in a breath. "You'd be surprised", I said. "Where and when is this exchange to take place?"

"An hour from now. I figure that won't give the police enough time to mobilize themselves. The same place on Stark as you saw me originally. Don't bring your boyfriend."

"Who?" I looked at Ranger in apology. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"The person who was with you the last time."

"You mean my partner? He's in his office, and it would be hard for me to get to him in time to set up him coming with me. An hour isn't long enough."

"That's why I picked it, honey. I have plans for you, and getting arrested isn't part of them."

"What are your plans for me?"

"You'll be my private 'ho until I get tired of you, and then you'll earn me lots of money. I could just tell from looking at you that you'll be a good moneymaker."

"While that sounds charming, what happens if I don't want to become a hooker?"

"I didn't realize that it was optional." He paused. "One hour", he said and he hung up the phone.

I made sure that the call had been disconnected, and then turned to Ranger's phone. "Did you get that, Joe?"

"I did. Who does he want to exchange you for?"

"Mary Lou. I would assume that he found her at my apartment."

"Okay. Where on Stark were you when he found you the last time?"

"I was near Romeo Tilson's house." I gave him the address.

"Okay. I'll mobilize as many people here as I can. I'll be over in about half an hour to put a wire on you."

"No need", said Ranger. "I can outfit her with an ear bud, and that will be safer for her than wearing a wire. I will also make a team here to provide support, and will get them in place at this end. Do what you have to do at yours, and I'll coordinate from here. I'll talk to you in half an hour to create a plan."

Ranger said goodbye and hung up the phone, then sent a text out to his staff before pulling me into his body and kissing me on the top of my head. I was shaking. "We won't let anything happen to Mary Lou", he said quietly. He rubbed my back. "And we won't let anything happen to you."

"I'm not that worried about me", I said. "I just feel bad for Mary Lou. She's not cut out for this."

"I know", said Ranger. "But to be honest, most people aren't."

"You are."

"I'm not most people." I smiled slightly and started to relax. "Let's go upstairs and get you outfitted for the evening."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I want you going into this meeting dressed but I don't want it to be apparent that you're dressed. Let's see what things of mine you can wear." I was happy with that idea. Wearing Ranger's clothes always made me feel more secure and protected and loved, and Ranger knew that.

He locked his office door and held my hand on the way to the elevator, and pulled me into a hug while we were travelling up to the seventh floor. When we got to the bedroom, Ranger led me into his closet. He handed me a t-shirt and a jacket of his. His jacket, although it looked like a normal spring jacket, was actually made of a lightweight bulletproof material. Neither the t-shirt nor the jacket was emblazoned with the Rangeman logo.

He kissed me again, and then led me down to the equipment room. About nine staff members were there. I didn't know how Ranger had been able to muster them so quickly, but I was pleased to know that I would have backup.

Ranger looked at the team as Tank handed out earpieces. He explained the situation and what was being done about it. He told them that they needed to remain invisible but, if there was a chance to take anybody without harming Mary Lou or me, that they should do so. "Tank will remain in the control room to coordinate efforts, and he'll be working with the police and coordinating everything on their end. Like other times you have used these earpieces, they will let you send and receive at the same time, and there is nothing special that you have to do for that. Babe, you'll have everybody here backing you up in addition to the team that Morelli can cobble together."

"You should remain out of sight", I said to Ranger. "Kanye will remember your face and will know something is up if you show up at the party."

Ranger looked frustrated. "I'll be monitoring everything from a block away, but I'll be close if you need me", he said finally.

Morelli called through, and Ranger talked to him for a moment, and told him that he'd have spare earpieces for the police officers who were responding. "I'll meet you at the coffee shop on the corner of State and Stark in ten minutes", he said. He hung up the phone.

Hector looked at me and nodded. "Let's get this asshole", he said.

The team all scattered and Ranger pulled me into his body. He gave me a deep kiss. "We'll get him", he said. "You don't have to be a hero."

I blew out a breath and rested my forehead on his shoulder. I kissed his neck. "You don't have to either", I said.

Ranger smiled softly. "But I do", he said. "I'm Robin Hood, remember?" He gave me another deep kiss and then was gone.

I turned my earpiece on and put it in my ear, and went out to Tank. "Wait fifteen minutes, Steph, and give everyone the chance to get into position."

"Okay", I said.

Tank waited patiently, and slowly the various team members reported that they were in position. Fifteen minutes after Ranger left, I got in my Explorer and motored down to Stark. My body was shaking and my heart was pounding, and I kept thinking about all the things that Mary Lou and I had done together. The silliness and the sleepovers. The crank calls and the crushes. The heartache and the hangovers. Mary Lou might piss me off, but she was the closest person to me outside family. We had a history and, for the most part, it was a good history. She had always been there for me, and I needed to be there for her.

I guess the team could hear me panicking through the earpiece, as Ranger said, "don't think about it, babe. You have a job to do. Get in there and get out as fast as you can."

"We're behind you, all the way", said Hal.

"I hate this", said Morelli.

I sighed. "I'm not particularly fond of this either", I said.

"Don't fuck this up", said Morelli. "We have trained people in place to take him down. Just get Mary Lou out of there. That's your job. Keep your head down if the bullets start to fly."

I gritted my teeth. "Aye, aye, captain", I said.

"I mean it, cupcake. I couldn't take it if you were hurt."

"I know, Joe", I said. I sighed, and I could hear Morelli sigh as well.

I arrived on Stark and drove down to Romeo's apartment, and parked the car. I could see a number of Ranger's men on the street, but I couldn't see Kanye at all. I sat for a moment and looked around, then looked down at my phone. I picked it up, put it on speakerphone, and called Kanye. "I'm here", I said. "I'm ready for the exchange."

"Excellent", he said. "Did you contact the police?"

"With what time? You know as well as I know that they can't respond that quickly."

"Mary Lou here told me that you're dating your partner. You lied to me."

"Not really. We aren't really dating each other. We are partners, however."

"Mary Lou said that you're fucking him, and that you're living with him."

"Yeah, he has a spare bedroom, and I was staying there when Mary Lou was staying in my apartment. You have never heard someone snore like Mary Lou, and I couldn't stay in the same apartment as her. I need my sleep, you know."

"She'll have to be punished for telling us a lie", he said, and I could hear Mary Lou get hit. She began to sob.

"Stop", I said. "Just because Mary Lou didn't know that I wasn't seeing him doesn't meant that she should be punished. I don't tell her much."

"She says she's your best friend."

"She used to be my best friend. We've grown apart recently. She stayed married and had kids, whereas I didn't. We are both happy in our lives and, having tried the kind of life that the other person has, we know that we don't want the lives of the other person. While that doesn't mean that I like her any less, it just means that we don't have as much in common with each other anymore."

"Keep him talking, cupcake", said Morelli in my ear. "We're triangulating the signal and will soon have a location for him."

"Do you have a best friend like that?" I said.

"Nah, bitch. My best friend and I are tight", said Kanye.

"That's good for you. What do you want me to do now? I'm here, just where you told me to be."

"I can see you. Do you have a gun with you?"

"No, I don't. I didn't think you would like me bringing a gun."

"That's true, bitch. Get out of the car, and I'll send someone out to bring you to me. No funny business, you understand?"

"Trust me, I am so far from laughing it's not funny", I said.

"Got him", said Morelli. "He's right where you are at the moment."

"How will I recognize the person you are sending out? I would hate to be taken by the wrong person, and it's been my recent experience that people get the wrong idea when you are out in this neighborhood. I don't want people to think that I'm in the business."

"Not yet, anyway, bitch. I have to prepare you for the business. I won't be able to keep you to myself as long as I would have liked. My bitches were all taken by the police and returned to their families. I have no bitches now. You'll be the start of my new family."

"I have a family. I don't want a new one."

"You'll like my family. I got lots of love drug for you to take. I have other drugs as well, but you'll like the love drug."

"Good to know, but I'm not interested."

"You will be interested. I need to rebuild my harem."

"Uh-hunh. Leave Mary Lou alone. Where am I going so that I can meet up with you and we can exchange Mary Lou for me?"

"See the homey walking out of the apartment building right now?"

"The one wearing the yellow shirt?"

"That's the one. Let him frisk you and then follow him. He will take you to me."

"Okay. You promise you're taking me to Mary Lou?"

"I promise, and the Kanye always keeps his promises."

I hung up the phone as the homey approached me, and I took the keys out of the car and put them in my pocket. As Ranger had taught me, they were potential weapons if used in the right way.

I got out of the car and stood beside it, and the gangbanger patted me down. He got a little frisky, and I looked at him and barred my teeth. "You know my signature move, don't you?" I said.

"Throw up on someone?" he said.

I glared at him. "No. Knee him so hard that _he_ throws up."

The youth pulled out a gun and gestured me to walk in front of him. I smiled when I saw him walk outside kneeing distance.

He guided me into a bombed-out building that looked like it would be more at home in a war zone than it was in the States. It looked like the building should be condemned, and I walked gingerly as I entered. I was afraid that the building would collapse around me.

"What's your name?" I said to the homey taking me into the building.

"Bulldog", he said.

"Well, Mr. Bulldog, it's nice to meet you."

"Shut up, bitch", he said.

As we got to the top of the stairs, two other youths guarding the doors moved to the side to let me into the room. I entered to see Mary Lou sitting on the concrete floor, mascara running down her face and a bruise forming under her eye. Her mouth was covered with duct tape and duct tape was used to restrain her arms and legs, but besides being terrified and bruised, she looked otherwise unharmed.

"I'm thinking", said Kanye from the bed that he was lounging on in the corner, "that I should keep both of you for my business. Now that the cop has taken my girls, I need to rebuild my staff."

"That wasn't the deal."

"Fuck the deal. I need to rebuild. If I don't have any girls, I don't have any money coming in, you see what I mean?"

"It's a criminal offense to be a pimp."

"I'm just a family member. Those 'hos were members of my family. Can I help it if they wished to share their bounty with me in exchange for a little protection from johns and other people?"

"I can see how that would be helpful, but no matter how you dress it up, you're still a pimp. I came in good faith. Now you have to let Mary Lou go."

"I don't have to do anything, bitch."

"Are you telling me that you're a liar? I trusted you."

"You shouldn't have trusted me."

"Then why do I want you to be my pimp? I don't want someone I can't trust be my pimp. I'm leaving." I turned around, and the homey that retrieved me and two of his buddies blocked my route. I turned back to Kanye. "So that's how you want to do this? You're going to force me to stay here by blocking me in? I thought you were better than that."

"I just don't want the merchandise walking out of here."

"Who is the merchandise? Me or Mary Lou?"

"Reinforcements are coming in", said Tank in my ear. "Be ready, Steph. Tell us whatever you can about the layout."

I walked over to Mary Lou and looked down at her. "You obviously have people at the door and at the window. We aren't escaping. Can't you take Mary Lou's restraints off? That duct tape is so tight it looks like it's cutting off circulation, and you'd hate it if she couldn't use her hands. I don't know how other people do it, but I use my hands when I am giving a blow job, even if it is just to hold Mr. Snuffleupagus steady."

I heard Hal give a choking sound and Tank cleared his throat. Morelli groaned as Ranger gave a pained 'babe'.

"Mr. Snuffleupagus?" said Kanye. "I'm more like Big Bird."

"I'll show you the bird", I said as I gave him the finger. "I can tell that you are no larger than my baby finger. Instead of calling you Mr. Snuffleupagus I would probably call you Mr. Dinkie Pinkie."

"I'm in place", said Hal. I heard seven more team members say that they were also in place, and I knew the best thing that I could do would be to get everyone out of the room so that Ranger's team could arrest them.

"On your command, Steph", said Tank.

"I bet you have a pencil dick."

"I have more than enough to satisfy you."

"Why don't you get rid of the five other men in the room, and you can prove yourself to Mary Lou and me. After all, I don't want a pencil dick for my pimp. If I'm to have a pimp, I want someone with big cajones, you know what I'm saying?"

"Are the five at the door or the window?" asked Tank.

"You've got two men at the window and three at the door", I said to Kanye, "and you're on the bed. Doesn't that seem a little like overkill? After all, you have beaten up Mary Lou slightly. I mean, her face is bruised and her hands and feet are tied and her mouth is taped shut and she is holding herself a little funny, so I don't think that she is in any danger of her running."

"She tried to bite me, so I kicked her in the ribs."

"So you have a woman with potentially broken ribs and another woman who you know won't leave the hurt woman behind. Why don't you send the five men out to the hall and Mary Lou and I can give you a little taste of what we can do as potential hookers. After all, you don't know if we are any good at turning tricks. And wouldn't our ability to perform for you be a good indication as to whether we'd be any good as 'hos?"

Kanye looked like he was thinking about it.

"Look, the five men can wait outside the door and, if you feel threatened at all by a hurt woman and her friend, you can call for help like a little pussy." I knew that I was probably pushing too hard, but I was getting mad. I had passed fear, had passed bone-deep terror a while ago, and now all that remained was numbness and anger.

Kanye hesitated.

I turned to the men. "Kanye is a pussy", I said. "This is the person you have chosen to follow?" I shook my head. "Of course, maybe you all are. Maybe I should become a 'ho and go out on my own. You seem to be a little too chickenshit. I'm just not interested in having assholes like you to protect me." I reached down and pulled Mary Lou to her feet. "Come on, Mary Lou. I wasn't sure about becoming a hooker, but now that I thought about it, I think it probably is a good idea. It would pay better than what I'm doing now. But if my pimp is too scared of a hurt woman and her friend to see if we are any good, then I don't want him as a protector. I'd rather go out on my own."

Kanye looked at me and smiled. "My men aren't chickenshit", he said. "And neither am I."

"Are you sure? Because you have five men standing at the door with their guns out to protect you from an injured woman and her friend. That smells like chickenshit to me."

Kanye looked at his men. "Leave. I'll see how these women do as 'hos, and I'll start with you", he said as he pointed to me.


	25. Chapter 25

The men all left the room, and I heard some quiet thuds in my earpiece. I didn't hear anything outside my earpiece though. "Got them", said five of Ranger's men in turn.

"So, Kanye. Are you planning on taking off your pants, or is this more like wishful thinking?" I said. "The last I checked, you needed to take your pants off to get a blow job."

"I look forward to filling that sassy mouth with my cock", he said. He groaned and winced as he pulled his pants down.

"Let me help", I said, and I went over to him and pulled his pants and underwear completely off. "There, now that you are naked and your men are out of the room, we can get down and dirty."

"Yeah, baby", he said. He started to pant and fondle himself.

"Do you really need to have a gun on the bed while I take care of you? It's putting me off what I'm going to do."

"You need to get moving, bitch. I think I'll just aim it at you so that you do what you said you were going to do."

"What are you planning on doing to me if I don't?" I said.

He turned his gun towards Mary Lou, and my heart stopped in fear. Mary Lou looked at me, tears running down her face, as she silently begged me to help her.

"Big man with a gun pointing it at Mary Lou. Wow. Way to impress me. If you have to resort to guns to get respect, then you don't deserve respect." I walked up to him and held out my hand. "Give me the gun."

"No, bitch."

"The door is locked", said Tank. "We don't want to make any noise by picking it. Can you open the window so that Hal and Hector can get in?"

"Look. What can you do to me? You have all your guys standing outside the door waiting for you to finish with me. There is literally nowhere that I can go. Do you think that I'll jump out the window?" I went to the window and opened it up. I looked down and smiled at Hal and Hector as they perched outside. I left the window open as I turned back towards Kanye. "We're on the second floor. How the hell do you expect me to get down that way? I'd break my leg, and then you'd have one bitch with broken ribs and another bitch with a broken leg. You might as well shoot us if we can't perform."

Mary Lou looked at me in fear and made mumbling noises around the tape.

"You never shut up, do you?" said Kanye.

"Guns make me nervous. I talk when I'm nervous."

"Just come and eat some Kanye cock."

"Put the gun down." I sidled between Mary Lou and Kanye so that he could no longer sight the gun on her. Mary Lou mumbled some more.

Kanye looked at me. "Are you going to come over here and give me a blow job or what?" he said. I walked up to him. "Just give me that blow job or I'll shoot you."

"Little man hiding behind your gun."

"I'm giving you fair warning." He sounded a bit frantic, but he was pointing the gun at me now so I was happy.

"You need to stop playing with guns." I thought I would be able to disarm him, but Mary Lou moved frantically as I reached to take the gun away from him and, out of surprise, he pulled the trigger and shot me square in the chest.

I fell down, winded, and smacked my head against the floor. I barely had time to register that my head hurt before everything went black.

My thought, as I came to, was that it should have been raining. Just like when I had been stunned, Ranger was calling my name and brushing his thumb across my cheek. Unlike when I'd been stunned, my pants weren't wet and it hurt to breathe. I could hear the sounds of Kanye being marched out of the room in cuffs. Morelli was the arresting officer, and I could hear him 'accidentally' pushing him into a wall as he walked out of the room. I could hear Hal tear the tape off Mary Lou's mouth and her screams of terror as he tried to cut her out of her restraints, and the paramedics pound up the stairs to assess Mary Lou and me.

I opened my eyes and looked at Ranger, and he looked relieved as he saw my eyes open. "Babe", he said.

I froze for a moment, before remembering that it was Ranger and he wouldn't yell at me. I smiled at him. "Help me up", I said.

"Take a minute. The paramedics want to check you out before you move too much. How do you feel?"

"Like I broke my rib again."

"And you might have. He was pretty close to you when he shot you."

"I almost had him disarmed."

"Hal was looking in the window and saw the whole thing, and said the same thing. I could hear you and you were doing a good job of keeping him off-balanced."

I grimaced. "I'd really like to sit up."

"No."

"Come on, Ranger. Let me sit up."

"Now I know that you're okay", said Morelli as he came back into the room, "if you are already causing trouble."

I smiled in my best conciliatory fashion. "I just want to sit up."

"Babe", said Ranger.

"Ranger." I glared at him as he smiled.

He moved to the side as the paramedic undid my jacket and lifted my top. He inspected my skin and felt my ribs. "You may have a broken rib. I can't tell if it is just severely bruised or broken and I'd recommend for you to go to the hospital to check it out." He felt my head and used a pen light to check my pupils. "You have a concussion and should also get that checked out as well."

"Damn", I said.

"Thank God she's yours now", said Morelli to Ranger. "She's a bitch when she has to spend time recovering."

Ranger smiled.

"Can't I just go home? They can't really do anything for little concussions or broken ribs."

"No", said Ranger.

"Please?"

"No", said Ranger and Morelli at the same time.

"I don't understand", said Mary Lou. "I saw you get shot, point blank, just three feet away from the gun."

"Bulletproof jacket", I said. "That's why I'm wearing Ranger's clothes."

"We'll have to get you a jacket of your own", said Ranger with a smile. "You know what this means, don't you?" He grinned.

"What?"

"You won't be able to carry Rex's cage for a while with your ribs." Ranger grinned at me. "And I refuse to move him out of my apartment." I blew out a breath, shook my head at how pleased Ranger was, and laughed.

"Are you going in the ambulance?" said the paramedic.

"I'll take her to the hospital", said Ranger. "I think, if I made her take an ambulance, I would be sleeping on the sofa tonight."

I made a face at him, and the paramedic patted him on the shoulder. "Good luck", he said to Ranger.

Ranger laughed.

"Now can I get up?" I said.

Ranger turned to Mary Lou. "Do you want to come with us or do you want to take an ambulance to the hospital?"

"I'll go with you."

Ranger lifted me to my feet and only elicited a small hiss of pain from me, and Hal helped Mary Lou to her feet. "What are you planning on doing when you get out of the hospital?" I asked Mary Lou. "You are perfectly welcome to stay in my apartment."

"I think I'll go home", said Mary Lou. "I don't think I'm cut out for the life of a bounty hunter. Lenny and I have done a lot of talking. We have agreed to do couples' therapy. I figure that he may be an alcoholic, womanizing asshole, but he's my asshole. And nobody shoots at me at home."

"You've had enough excitement?"

"Sanity has its benefits."

I slung my arm over her shoulder and kissed her on the side of her head. "Love you", I said.

Mary Lou grinned. "Love you too, Steph."

I smiled. Nothing more needed to be said.

_~ The End ~_


End file.
